Happy New Year! Week of 21-28 December 2008

MERRY CHRISTMAS MORNING!

Sunday 28 Dec. 2008

Allright – well it’s been a long time since the last update. As we all know, things get a little busy during December.

There’s a lot to report this time – and probably the last report of the year -- so let’s go one person at a time for this update.

Katie

Katie had a big project on the body due in December. She (and Rachel) spent a lot of time making a paper mache half-of-a-brain and then attaching it to a foam core board. Around the brain she drew an outline of the rest of the body and all of the nerves running around it. Then she glued gold string on the outlines of the nerves. As part of the project they had to get up in front of the class and tell what each part of the brain and nervous system did. Katie does great with oral presentations and the teacher liked her project, so she got a perfect score.

She also had a couple books that she had to finish reading during the last week.

The last Tuesday of School, Katie had her Chirpin’ Cricket Chorus Concert. Katie had a good time singing. Her favorite song was called The Peace Song. The Zachreson family came to support her and they even brought some friends of theirs who were visiting from out of town.

As if all of that wasn’t enough to try to cram into the last week of school, Katie’s class also did a “Sneaky Snowman” gift exchange (a.k.a. Secret Santa). The kids bought little gifts for each other and then secretly placed it on the recipient’s desk each day that week.

Katie got some roller skates for Christmas – so she spent quite a bit of time practicing on Christmas day. To get her started, Troy got out our big two-seater stroller. She held onto the handle for balance and pushed it around the neighborhood as she got used to skating. The weather here was a nice, warm 70 degrees. No white Christmas – but we get to roller skate and bike around – so nanny nanny :-P

Emma

Emma is breezing through 2nd grade. No major projects yet, and she’s smart enough that she rarely needs help with her homework.

Emma’s favorite Christmas gift was a razor scooter. She had fun racing around the neighborhood on Christmas day.

Emma is a good middle sister. She is generally the most accommodating of the bunch. She will give up what she wants if it makes someone else happy. Last night when we went to a party at the neighbor’s house, all of the kids got a little gift. Emma saw that another little girl was really interested in her gift – so she offered to trade with her. It was a sweet gesture.


Claire

Claire has been coming home for lunch from school most days still. She goes to Kindergarten with everyone for the whole school day, but coming home at lunch time gives her a needed rest and recharge so she can make it the last few hours of school.

The last couple days of school everyone did projects with their buddies. Claire’s buddy is Sierra Mitchell, who she already knows from church. The projects and parties were just enough to keep her going to school during those last few days.

All three girls saved up some money and then bought little gifts for family and friends at a little school gift shop. Those little gifts were Rachel’s favorite part of Christmas.

Zach

Zach is saying more and more words now. He is at the age where he will try to repeat just about anything you say. One day after he repeated a couple of my statements I asked him if he was a parrot. He resolutely replied: “No, Hack not a parrot, Hack a big boy!”

Zach had another growth spurt. For the last couple weeks he has been eating a lot, and then today we noticed that some pants that we had to roll up 2 weeks ago fit just fine today.

Zach had a good time this Christmas. He got some toy cars and trucks and a Go Diego Go Playhouse for christmas. When it comes to toys, two-year-olds are generally pretty easy to please.

Zach’s new nickname this month is “The Candy Weasel.” Wherever we have candy in the house he will find it and eat it -- constantly. Christmas morning all of the kids got candy and gum in their stockings. Zach ate a lot of gum that day. The day after Christmas Troy went through the house and put away all of the candy that he saw so that Zach couldn’t reach it. Only a few minutes afterwards, Zach wanders in to the kitchen chewing some more gum. The candy weasel found more candy somehow! In order to find where Zach was getting all of it from, Troy had to tell Zach that Daddy really wanted some candy – so please go find some. He then watched as Zach went back into the living room and pulled out another pack of gum from a stocking that Troy missed earlier. Ah Ha! Much to the Candy Weasel’s dismay that stash was immediately confiscated. We have a bunch of goodies and candy on our counters as well – but we’ve found that if we put a towel over the goodies so that Zach can’t see them, then he forgets that they are up there. Out of sight, out of mind.

We thought about putting Zach on the front lawn as a living sculpture...he objected.

Rachel (as reported by Rachel)

Rachel gets to report the craziness of the last month in her own words.

It was craziness from about Thanksgiving on but that's what the holidays are all about, right? Between multiple concerts, performances, batches of popcorn balls, meals prepared, gifts wrapped, cards sent, errands ran, well-wishes given, messes made and cleaned up, extra trips to the store and kids running around the house it has been a fun, well-loved and well-used month of December. Christmas morning as a parent is much better than any other I can remember (except when I got my banana-seat bike that was all mine and not a hand-me-down.) This year I honestly didn't have anything major on my wish list. I picked out a purse I had been shopping around for for a while and a dvd, but it was fun just gathering things for my family. I felt sorry for Troy, as I gave him NO guidance on getting something for me, but he came through with a gift card to iTunes and some new Bass-Enhanced earphone for my mp3 player. Way cool, yo yo. Overall, it was a great December and a wonderful Christmas.

Troy (as reported by Troy)

I was fairly busy at work this month -- but I’m just glad that I’m not an accountant or salesman that has all sorts of end of the year quotas and deadlines. I’m still getting the hang of managing a small team of people, so much of my work is still learning as I go along. I hope to gradually get more efficient so that many of the day to day tasks don’t consume as much time.

Intel overall is still good – the top management says that because of the sluggish worldwide economy they will probably not give anyone any raises this year. The good news is that they plan to keep headcount flat during 2009 – which means no big layoffs.

Intel gives us Dec. 25-26th off and Jan. 1-2nd off so many people, myself included, are taking a vacation for the full two weeks. We decided that with all of the expenses of Christmas, etc, we didn’t want to spend more money for trips, so we’re just kind of hanging out.

I took the kids to the park a couple of times last week. Getting the kids out of the house helped them get rid of some wiggles, and helped Rachel get some of her Christmas prep done. On one of our outings I took Emma and Claire to my work to water my plants, and then we went to the Library for a couple hours. Emma and Claire like to check out the classic Serendipity books and color pictures while they are there.

Last night we all went over to a party at our neighbor Arthur’s house. It was kind of a friends get-together and birthday party for their 1-year-old. Our kids were well behaved, and to my surprise even ate the food. (adobo chicken and pork with rice and beans).

Rachel and I got a call earlier in the week to give talks in church. Rachel accepted the assignment knowing that we should have plenty of time to prepare once Christmas was over. We spent a good part of Friday and Saturday getting our talks ready. Mine was a preview for study of the Doctrine and Covenants this year – including ways to enhance your individual study. As one suggestion I told the congregation about Dad’s technique for underlining different topics using different color pencils. I had a couple people ask me to send them notes on the system. Should I copyright it and call it the Willes Scripture Marking Method™? But poor Rachel, no one told us that the Young Women would also be reporting on their trip they took the week before to an orphanage in Mexico. They had 3 girls talk on their experiences. By the time they were done there wasn't enough time to do both of our talks so Rachel just bore her testimony and gave me the rest of her time. What a trooper. Looking on the bright side, however, she realized she now has a really great talk prepared for a time when she's asked to speak and DOESN'T have the time to write one. The glass is half full, my friend, half full...