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