Christmas Letter 2010

Dearest Friends and Family -

Since there haven't been hoards of changes in our family, the traditional mailed Christmas card has been swapped for a more contemporary solution, a blog post.  Call me a slacker all you want but if you want to wait while I get pictures taken, cards printed, envelopes addressed, notes written, etc - you might be waiting until April!

Mikayla has embraced the joy that is known as being two, she has developed a serious independent streak and an attitude a mile wide.  Thankfully she makes up for it by being super cute.  This year she is finally big enough climb up into fast food playgrounds and just this month got brave enough to slide down the big slides.  She has a huge sweet tooth and knows exactly how to hit up her parents and grandparents to get candy. 

Timmy turns five in January and is in Pre-K this year.  He keeps startling people with his reading skills, which is fun for us. That is when he's not talking and questioning our ears off.  He insists that he is a big kid and can do things that are dangerous because he will be careful.  We have a lot of talks about even though he is getting bigger everyday there are things we will not let him help with. We were recently called to be teachers for his primary class, coincidence? I don't think so.

Jodi decided that this year she would start her writing career.  January 2010 she started a blog focused around fiction writing topics and has written over 200 posts covering everything from authors to grammar.  She currently averages around 1,700 page views a week and has 45 subscribers.  Go check it out: MyLiteraryQuest.  She has also been working on her own works of fiction and has finished the first drafts of two books.

Joe continues to work at Motorola and recently began designing the Jail module of the PremierOne product, a venture that has taken him to visit several different prisons.  He is also still working towards his MBA through the University of Utah and will graduate this coming August.  In the scant fragment of free time left he is also a Webelos den leader.

From all of us to all of you, Merry Christmas!  May you be filled with the spirit of the season and fantastic plans for the coming year.

With love,
Joe, Jodi, Timmy, and Kayla.

Yay, look who's blogging!

After putting it off for so long I am finally posting an update.  Yay me!  To my dismay I can't find hardly any pictures for Christmas and Timmy's Birthday.  Yes, that does make me a slacker mom.  I'm ok with that.
Christmas was a blast this year.  It was our first in the new house and fun to set up all the goodies for the kids.  Tim's big present this year was a big boy bike that he adores.  He's been riding it in the unfinished basement while the weather's been nasty and can't wait to be able to go outside.  Kayla didn't get anything huge but was very happy with her Tinkerbell chair and ball popper.

We loved the snow even though it was too cold to stay outside for long the kiddos had a great time eating it and sledding down the front lawn.  Here's Kayla all bundled up, she makes me think of Maggie on the Simpsons.  I don't think she can put her arms down

Timmy ended up looking like Big Bird from Sesame Street, but hey, he was warm.  It was a fight to the death to get him back inside from playing.

 

  Timmy was great to keep Kayla on the sled and they were both screaming and laughing all the way.  For Christmas they both got small plastic sleds as well. 

At preschool they had a Santa come to class and ask each student what they wanted for Christmas - this is what Timmy asked for.  We scrambled and found a pack of Mac and Cheese to put out Christmas morning.  Had a harder time with the moon.

 We went to San Diego as a family and had a great time, the kids loved the ocean even through it was really cold.  We went to Sea World, and the San Diego Zoo, and took a boat ride around San Diego Bay.

Kayla loved the sand almost as much as she loved the water.

Timmy REALLY liked the water, he got too brave a few times and got totally soaked.

We tried to convince them about how fun it is to build sand castles, hard where there is the ocean RIGHT THERE. 

Here is Kayla saying "moo" to the goat in the petting zoo.

Despite gentle urging, this was the only thing we could get Timmy to interact with at the petting zoo.

We were lucky to catch the flamingos out for a walk at Sea World, Timmy wasn't so sure about being that close.

It wasn't quite warm enough to let her get soaked, but she thought the water was super funny.

Our super trooper

He's growing too fast.

I promise to do an update when I find the rest of the pictures, I swear!  

And more details also.