"Go Out and PLAY!"

My kids are ready to go back to school.  They are getting anxious and bored being home and trying to find things to do.  Having no neighbors to harass it's always tricky to get them to get off the couch and stop playing wii and get outside.  When they were little they had no problem getting on their play clothes and going out and just playing. 
Now that they are older
1.  They don't "play"
2.  Don't even call it "play" because they will roll their eyes and act like that was the biggest insult you have ever given them.
3.  They don't want to put on "play" clothes.  For some reason, even though nobody will see them in our yard, looking good is priority.
4.  If I tell them to go out and "play" they yell at me and tell me to stop treating them like babies. 
5.  Right now, for instance, Jordan is straightening her hair so she can go outside to sled.
6.  I know longer am the cool Mom. 

I did get them to go outside eventually.  Jordan smelled real pretty too after she put on some perfume. 
She will be the best smelling sledder in our yard. 

Day Off

Day off!!

This season kicked my sorry arse but in a good way.  All in all, it was great to be working and making money and the tourists weren't too cranky or weird which we often see during this time.  I did, however, miss my family in a bad way and thought about everyone at my aunt's house.  This time last year my Dad was in the hospital recovering from dying and being brought back to life and we were all there, at my Dad's house, celebrating Christmas, making visits to the hospital, having some fun watching our kids together.  There is nothing like cousins.  I love my cousins.  And my kids love their cousins too.  It's a super special relationship. 

I am enjoying my coffee, looking out at the day.  It's windy but warm and we still have no snow but I'm taking Jordan and going skiing.  Later we are having dinner with one of my most favorite families in the world.  I'm liking this day knowing I don't have to go to work and I get one day of reprieve. 
Tomorrow I start all over with a busy week at work until Sunday when I get to recoup again. 
Head down, game face on, work mode, but today I'm off and I am getting out and enjoying it.

Have a great day where ever you live.

Merry Christmas Eve

Twas the night before Christmas
 and the restaurant was busy
with tourists aplenty
 eating and drinking until they were dizzy.
Most had a good time
 in the past there are cranks
but tonight was a good crowd
 and for that I say thanks. 
The tips were all good
 which is always a plus
At the end of the night
 there was no need to fuss.
Tomorrow we wake
 do it all over again
I'd rather be with my family
 but working this holiday wasn't that bad in the end. 

Merry Christmas. 

Mother/Daughter Time

My daughter, Hannah, rallied me pretty hard this morning to get up out of bed and go skiing.  Since we don't have any snow it's hard to get motivated to go ski.  But we went and had a blast. 

We got on the lift at 10:30 and it was sunny and warm.  We got off the lift, skied off the back side towards North Peak and rode up the lift for some more sun and smiles.  We were both so content and happy to be outside. 

After a few runs we called it a day and headed home.  At the end of our last run we were behind a snowboarder going way to fast.  He was not slowing down when he got to the slow fence and tried jockeying his way through the fence past a Father and his probably 5 year old daughter.  He ran right into the little girl right in front of us.  Luckily she was not hurt and the Dad was stunned that that just happened.  There were two ski patrols standing there watching and they went up to the kid and just said, "Buddy, your day is over!!"  They took his pass and kicked him off the mountain.  Hannah and I saw the whole thing and we were just shocked to see this idiot try to ride his way through the fence at a high speed.   Nice to see someone get busted for being a doink and not thinking about the people around him. 
    The coolest thing about today is that my 12, almost 13 year old, likes skiing with me still and we laugh and have a great time together.   This will change, I'm sure, but I sure did relish in the moment today.  We have a blast together and she makes me smile. 

I could barely keep up.  I had to turn it up a notch watching her ski fast down the mountain. 
Damn.

My 2004 Christmas Letter

This was my first Christmas letter ever.  I had just received a Christmas letter from a friend of mine who I never keep in touch with any more.  She gushed and gushed and her kids are clearly the most perfect kids in the world.  I was extremely annoyed with her letter and sat down on my computer and wrote this in about 5 minutes.   It's all true and I felt much better.   Needless to say, my Mother, who had a great sense of humor, was NOT amused by this letter for some reason. 

Here it is.
 

As this year comes to an end I hope it has been as crazy and hectic as ours. 

I’ll update you on our two beautiful children, Jordan and Hannah.

     Jordan is our oldest.  She is now 8 and continues to amaze us with the fits she throws and is a true handful.  She is a typical 8 year old and we can never turn our heads for a minute.  She has had her 2^nd offence at our local grocery store.  By that I mean we are now in the stealing from the checkout line phase.  The first time was embarrassing, and the second time was just down right humiliating.  They told us that if it happens again they would call the police.  Hopefully that scared her enough to get her to stop.  Jordan also continues to struggle at school.  We should have held her back as advised but she was such a good student in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade.  Now that she is in 3^rd grade she is struggling at math and reading but loves and does well at everything else.  We are doing many math facts during our winter break.  Too bad for her.  Jordan is a great athlete.  We are so proud of her swimming and she is a fish in water.  We keep her up on her swimming lessons and she especially likes Mondays with the after school day camp program.  There’s really no instruction going on and the kids just go wild at that pool.  She loves it.  We are not skiing yet because we have been just too busy but we have the girls signed up for the Arapahoe Basin Ski Club which starts in January.  Most of our friends’ kids are already on double black diamonds.  But not our girls. They still prefer the green runs and their favorite run is called Toilet Bowl.  Sweet, huh?

     Hannah is 5 and is in full time kindergarten and loves every minute of it.  She really doesn’t excel at anything but she is a very happy-go-lucky kid.  She has a lot of friends and seems to be well liked.  She is the pickiest eater on earth and I’m not sure how she survives on just noodles and plain bread.  Hopefully some day we can get a vegetable or fruit into her little system. Jordan and Hannah are best friends and they fight like sisters do.  I’m sure you all know that it can get pretty violent at times.  But sisters will be sisters.  Hannah has also discovered swear words which can be very embarrassing at times.  Kids these days.

     Our newest addition to our family is our dog, Teller.  He’s named after the mountain right behind our house and our other dog Buck is buried up there.  We adopted him from the pound last January so he isn’t quite one year yet but is well on his way to weighing over 100 lbs.  Who would’ve thunk?  He gets into everything from the garbage to any food left on the counter.  We really need to watch him at all times too.  He just gobbled up an entire plate of fresh homemade cinnamon rolls that were even wrapped.  He’s also discovered that the couch is much more comfortable than the floor.  Dog hair is all over our furniture now.  We try to get him down but he sleeps there during the night when we are all sound asleep.  He is a very smart dog!

Jack and Heather are still pretty much the same.  We have arguments like normal people but we now argue much more constructively and that helps.  Thanks Dr. Phil.  Heather broke her collar bone over her 40^th birthday and that really took a toll on the checkbook.  But after her surgery in June she is fully recovered.  Heather also went back to work in August.  She works in a Dental office at the front desk and loves it.  Jack is still a builder and he is one skillful builder.  He mostly builds custom homes and it keeps him busy.  Even though we struggle financially we still manage to put a smile on our face and enjoy life to the fullest.

We are very blessed and we feel so very fortunate to have a pretty normal family. 

We hope this letter finds you better off than us.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Love,

Us

My 2009 Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas.  We hope this letter finds you all struggling just as hard as the B Family is.  It gives us great joy to know that other families have a tough go of it too.

Heather

Heather is focused on not having a nervous breakdown.   She is having a great time in life and the kids continue to be such a challenge but it’s good for her to have that.  She has always liked a challenge and this is perfect for her.   We did have quite the pregnancy scare earlier on in the year and thank goodness it was just that, a SCARE. We just know that if we were pregnant we would have had another girl.  That would have been just par for our course.   We were ecstatic to know she is just going through menopause.   God works in mysterious ways. 

Jack

Jack is doing wonderful. He was just voted number one dad by our two daughters and was so proud for being recognized in this family. He’s working very hard to be number one husband but has a long way to go.   His job is still in the construction world and he has taken it upon himself to venture off on his own a bit and now he has so much more time to ski.  He is skiing as much as he can in the winter and in the summer he rides his mountain bike as much as he can.  Jack did travel to Costa Rica because we did purchase property down there.  He spent 2 weeks in Costa Rica and unfortunately it rained and rained and the beach was polluted with raw sewage.  We are hoping we didn’t make a mistake by buying property where we did.  We’ll see. 

Jordan

 Jordan continues to keep us on our toes.  She is now in the swearing phase of her life and is experimenting at home when she throws her fits.  She loves to just let those bad words fly and see our reaction.  After all she is a teenager now (13).   She is now homeschooled and is determined to send her mother to an institute of some sort.  Jordan continues to make us proud though.   She excels at computer games, and hand held yahtzee.  Jordan is our thespian   She was cast in the Christmas Carol play and has 2 lines.   She loves every minute of it.  She is not the athlete of the family and hates winter but theatre has filled that void. 

Hannah

Hannah loves swimming and has been on our local swim team for 3 years now.  She competes in swim meets all over Colorado.  The last meet she swam she only got disqualified once.  Hannah enjoys skiing and now wants to do gymnastics.  Too bad we don’t have the money for the gymnastics but she’ll get over it.  She’s been there done that with us before.  Hannah is also the comedian of our family.  She continues to impress us during our fights and she’ll just break out with a dance or a joke just to get us all to stop.   Hannah is our happy go lucky child and is really just very average. 

Teller,

  Even though our girls are definitely not gifted or talented, our beast of a dog is!  He is soooo smart.  He eats us out of house and home daily and has figured out that he can get food from our garbage as soon as we fall asleep.  He’s even figured out how to open the cupboard where we keep the garbage!  We are still very proud of him.  He’s as big as a horse, being part Great Dane, which Heather didn’t know when she adopted him 5 years ago.  She thought she was bringing home a small lab mix.  Surprise!!!    Teller is an incredible watch dog for our family.  Anytime someone comes to the house he barks and growls and scares the youknowwhat out of whomever it is.  It is a great comfort to us to know that he might attack at any given moment.  FYI, call us before you come for a visit.  Teller brings us great comfort and joy. We are truly blessed to have him. 

Buster is the newest addition to our family.  He is our cat and loves to pounce on the kids.  He also scares the living daylights out of us and he is just scratching up the furniture something fierce.  Too bad we bought a new couch before we got him.  It’s trashed.  We love him and although our house smells like cat pee we are now a complete family.

We hope this letter finds you all healthy and happy.  We are still working on it. 

Happy Holidays,

The B's

WARNING! Bragging Rights

WARNING!!
I have to brag for a bit. So if parents who brag about their kids make you gag, don't read on. 
I have good kids.  Both, completely different from one another but both equally good in their own way. 

Jordan has been swimming and loving the team and the team has taken her in like she has been a friend for life.  No judgement, no drama, no attitudes.  Just good kids having a great time as a team of swimmers.  As many issues as Jordan has not one of those girls seem to care and they include her in everything.  Her endorphins have kicked in and she is happier.  She swims 5 days a week.  We get up twice a week because she has to be at the pool by six.  That means we have to leave our house at 5:15 am and it's tough.  She swims 2 meets a week and the drive is a long one to Denver from here.  Tuesday I drove down to Denver to see the meet and I watched her swim the 50 fly.  It was awesome and she swam it well.  Her stroke was beautiful.  It was worth the drive.  She hasn't complained once about swimming.  I love that sport. 

Hannah has been busting her butt in school.  Last month she got off of her IEP which made her a special ed student.  I have said this before and I'll say it again.  GET RID OF STANDARDIZED TESTING!!  She scores low on those tests but is an excellent student.  Needless to say, she was ecstatic when she felt like she was not a "dumb" kid or a "sped".  Well, she was placed in a lower level reading and math class and was just bummed about it.  For a couple of weeks she has been asking me to set up an appointment with her teachers to discuss this.  Her thought process, with good reason, is that why did she work so hard in school to get off her IEP and now she's not seeing any benefits from it?  She kept thinking "why am I still in the sped classes?  Good point.  She called me at work and asked me if I had emailed school.  I'm telling you she is on it.  I asked her which teachers needed to be addressed and she told me.  Then she said, "Mom, before you set up an appointment let me tell you when I'm free".  Ha Ha. She's so organized but that's one thing I do know.  When she is free.  She cracks me up.  Anyway, I email and they explain why she is in the classes she's in, because of the standardized tests, and after they thought about her situation they moved her to a higher level class and the morning she was so upset, with these huge Cindy-Loo-Who tears streaming down her cheeks, she came home that same day a different kid with way more confidence knowing that she would be challenged. 
The cool thing about this is that she totally advocated for herself and made that change.  She works hard and it shows.  The teachers love her.  Especially her ski coaches.  One has told me that they have never seen a kid so excited all the time when she is on the mountain.  And it is contagious.  She loves every bit of winter and the cold.  Crazy. 

I've shed a lot of tears over the past 2 months because parenting has really given me a run for my money.  It's the hardest thing I have ever encountered.  This week has been a good one for my parenting confidence.