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So we measured Zach. Turns out he is now a little over 5′10″. Taller than his Mom! A bittersweet day for me. Oh not because my little boy is growing up, not at all! Because although I am proud that he is growing up, I outweigh him by WAY too much! I think he is about 120 pounds at 5′10. Time to bulk up now! He finds a little pleasure in this whole maturation business. He likes that people don’t confuse him and me on the phone. Having Alisa walk up to him and say “Oh my gosh, Zach has a mustache!” isn’t apparently so fun!

Speaking of Alisa, she finished up her 3 months of eye-patch wearing. Now she goes for one month without eye-patches to see if her eye that was strengthened gets weak again. Apparently for 15% of kids it does, which would mean more eye-patches.

Mark and I are looking at cruise itineraries for our 15th anniversary. We asked Tracey, our SIL if we could drop 2-3 of the kids at her house on the way to the port (which at that time was San Diego with a Hawaii itinerary. But she offered to come up here so the kids could stay together, opening up our port options a bit. We also considered bringing the kids with us on a shorter 3-5 day cruise, but promised them that we’d do the whole Disney World thing ONCE, LOL, and now Harry Potter World is coming in a year and they want to do that too, so we are going with the original option of going alone. (And I chuckle as I type this because Alisa is in the other room suggesting they play ‘Cruise’ instead of house! But since Tracey would be coming up here, we are looking at different ports. Yay!

Alisa’s birthday is next week and she is having a Valentine’s birthday party. She is really excited! Her birthday signals the start of our ‘birthday season’. I also have the Cub Scout Blue and Gold banquet coming up and the Pinewood Derby next month. January is a slow month for me, but February, March, and April are just the opposite!

Reese is doing really well. She has her 18month (but she’ll be 19.75) well baby appointment in 2 weeks. We’ll be on track at 2 years though. She is failing church Nursery miserably, crying except for snack time and bubble blowing time. Whether Mark is in there or not. I am teaching music to the other kids, so I can’t stay with her. Really Mark has other things to do, but someone has to comfort her. I am not the type of mom to let them cry it out until they are used to it. Anyway she is speaking in 2-3 word sentences and has a very large vocabulary and can repeat anything, literally. And then remembers it. She likes to look through books and label everything. She knows her body parts, even pretty obscure ones (for a baby…like elbow, shoulder, heel) and likes to sing.

And Dylan started the ‘Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons” book. He is on lesson 6, and today he read “Mat” all by himself. Alisa is a different story. She CAN read, she just really doesn’t like to do so, which for me is really hard, speaking as someone who absolutely has to read, even if it’s the box of cereal while I have breakfast!

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I’ve never been a huge fan of January. It’s dark, cold, snowy, windy. This January has been no exception. Probably even colder than normal. And I LOVE snow. Until right about the end of January, and here we sit! I was telling a friend that if I could pick a place to live it would be snowy from the day before Thanksgiving until the day after Valentine’s day and then be sunny and 80º the rest of the year. Oh, with mountains on one side of me and oceans on the other. Kind of like Honduras or Jamaica but with the snow I request!

I had a few blog entries written down but not posted, so a jump in updates for all of you.

I think Alisa’s lip as as good as it’s going to get. She unfortunately has some scar tissue that creates a lump and if she smiles really wide you can see the scar running through her lip, making a small white line where the red flesh is supposed to be. I feel just awful about it, but if I mention ‘plastic surgeon’ she immediately freaks out and says “I don’t mind the scar! I don’t mind the lump!” She might in 10 years though, so we’ll see!

The kids and I watched President Obama’s (ooh, time to add that to the spell checker list!) inauguration. What a fantastic moment to share with your children! And while I don’t agree with all his politics I am ready to support him as OUR president and pray for him. I am disgusted at what I see happening around the ‘net though. Both the media circus that treats him way over-the-top, and those who refused to watch because they thought he was ‘evil’ or ‘not really a citizen’ (yes, real quotes.) Or that it wasn’t truly an historic moment because he isn’t REALLY black, just 1/2 (or whatever percentage the various people allow.) I also thought it was lovely to see 2 representatives from my church there. I hope we can all give him a chance (before calling him a liar and saying he is going to do away with the constitution!)

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We did the traditional New Year celebration that we do every year, which is to each pick our favorite food and eat all night long.  Mark picked bacon-water-chestnut wraps with BBQ sauce.  I picked hot wings.  Zach picked clam chowder.  Gabby picked bacon tomato cups .  Ethan picked French Silk pie.   Alisa picked pizza.  Dylan picked chicken nuggets.  Reese picked cherry cheesecake dessert.  I also added a veggie pizza because at that point we NEEDED vegetables!

We stay up late and play games and watch movies.  Then we watch the NY ball drop (an hour delayed) to ring in the new year.  Dylan was asleep at that point, but the rest of us kissed and said “Happy New Year” and went upstairs to have sparkling cider.  It’s a fun night for everyone.  The next day everyone played outside, after sleeping in!  I hope everyone enjoys a prosperous 2009!

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