Holy Moley, can you believe 2016 is almost over? What a year it’s been. The committee that writes this annual newsletter has heaps of news to share, so we hope you’re bored enough at this very moment to read a rambling, narcissistic, possibly made up brag session all about us. We’re pretty sure we won’t even mention you once. I mean, would you look through a photo album even if you weren’t in any of the pictures? You might, but you’d probably be bored. Here we go.
There are more of us! On March 1st, our little Nora joined the squad. She was born fat. That’s not being mean, the doctor really said to us when she was born, “Nice fat kid.” She was actually only 9 pounds 10 ounces, which in our absurdly sized families is considered mildly bulimic, but we didn’t feel like correcting a doctor while Dayna’s guts were still hanging open from pulling a human being from her insides.
Nora has changed so much since then. She is happy, giggly, crawling everywhere, grabbing everything, and loves everything her big brother does. She has lots of long, beautiful hair (on top of her head,) and fresh blonde hair coming in everywhere else. It looks weird, but we still love her.
Our wonder boy Max continues to be worth keeping around. Just in the last few weeks, his vocabulary and communication skills have blown up. He’s speaking in 3-5 word sentences all the time, ranging from trolling his parents (calling his mother ‘Dayna’ instead of mommy,) to proving what a good kid he is (“Wow, Star Wars! Yay!”) to flattering his father (when hearing his dad listening to Metallica, “Wow, Daddy’s guitar!”) As of this writing, Max has just turned two years old. We had talked about having another baby when Max turned two, but had never thought that baby would be nine months old at the time.
Max gets very excited about vehicles. Everything from our car-- the “black car”-- to trains, airplanes (pronounced airpoos,) to his favorite thing in the world: fire trucks. If Max hears any siren, he runs to the window in the front room at approximately 55 miles per hour shouting “BIRE TRUCK BIRE TRUCK! EEEOOOOEEEOOO!” The sirens never stop at our house, which is disappointing for him, but okay with the rest of us.
Dayna continues to live a life of luxury with two babies at home. As Socrates once said, “The upbringing of young children is the easy life. You get to take naps all the time, wear comfy pants, and you always have a strong Wi-Fi connection.” The man knew his stuff. Yet Dayna thrives as both she and children continue to be cute and well behaved.
Speaking of cute children, Dayna often gets to interact with many children-- their cuteness varies week to week-- in her calling as the very best primary choristers in the whole ward. She often walks into the church with enough props to decorate a float in the Macy’s Day parade, and leaves 11 year old girls raving with comments like, “I guess it wasn’t that bad.” She is a treasure.
Jack has a nice new scar on his face. He had been working on growing a nice Enrique Iglesias style mole on his cheek, and in a moment of pure vanity, told the doctor he was really worried about it being cancer. He wasn’t, but didn’t want to pay for cosmetic surgery so he said that he was. They sliced it off his face cleanly in 20 seconds and sent him on his way, essentially scar free. Then he got a call a few days later telling him he was right to be worried because it was cancer. Ha!
(For the worry warts out there: it was Basal Cell Carcinoma. No one is dying. For those of you who weren’t that concerned, I hope you didn’t read this part. It really kills the suspense.)
We scheduled the first appointment available so they could come scrape out all of the bad crap from Jack’s face. Unfortunately, this time slot was two days before our previously scheduled family pictures, and three days before Jack’s business trip to VISA headquarters in California. Well the surgery went fine, as long as you love slasher films where they gouge people’s faces while they’re still awake, except this was worse because it wasn’t a movie.
Well the camera didn’t shatter from taking pictures of Jack’s scary mug, and VISA didn’t throw the SecurityMetrics group out of the building, although an executive did address Jack’s ten-stitched face as “dressed up like a pirate.” Yarrr, this story be a true one!
Speaking of true stories, this is our 12th Christmas together, and the 12th Christmas during which Dayna has been sure the tree will fall off the roof of our car on the drive home. And the 12th Christmas that she was almost right the entire way.
Now a lot of this probably sounds boring, and it should be noted that indeed, it is. We are living a very parental life, and often quote The Wiggles, The Pout-Pout Fish, or But Not the Hippopotamus to each other the same way adults quote... I don’t know, what’s new on TV now? Home Improvement? Lost? We’re just saying that in defense of our lame sounding life, we are actually very cool and have lots going on #trustus.
Editor’s Note: Jack had an 800 word paragraph about Star Wars here that is gone now. You’re welcome.
The overall news to report is that things are going great for our family. Jack hasn’t gotten fired, Dayna hasn’t burned the house down, Max hasn’t killed Nora, Nora hasn’t killed the dog, and the dog is still afraid of both kids. We’re happy in our house, job and like spending time with each other. We love you all-- depending on the week-- and want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
Love,
Jack, Dayna, Maximus, Nora and Anne the dog
