Yuletide greetings friends! 2015

Well it’s Christmastime already and that means it’s time for our annual Christmas letter. Oh, what a year it’s been!

Mark is 3 and has been quite enamored with dinosaurs for almost a year now. He knows all their names and many interesting factoids about each. His favorite one is the T-Rex, of course, and many days we will find him lumbering around roaring and attacking his prey. He claims that T-Rexes primarily eat humans and dogs. I’m not a periodontist so I’ll have to take his word for it.

Luke is 19 months old now. He started walking at around 15 months. He was running a few weeks later, and he hasn’t looked back since. He hasn’t looked forward either, which has made playing Tag a bit hazardous. He’s not much of a dinosaur. Too small. I would say he’s more of a fox. Cunning, agile, overly interested in trash cans. He can’t match Mark in size or strength, but he may be able to distract Mark long enough to steal his toy truck and throw it behind the couch which I have reason to believe is an entry point to a wormhole that leads to a different dimension.

As a parent with 2 boys, you learn that 5 minutes without screaming or crying means they are finally playing together nicely, and 10 minutes without screaming or crying probably means they found a tube of diaper cream upstairs and have covered each other’s faces with it.

Actually, they play pretty well together. Their favorite games are “Can I Balance on This Without It Tipping Over?” “How Quickly Can We Break This?” “Who Can Yell the Loudest?” and “Is This Edible?”

Unfortunately, Luke has been waking up around 3 or 4 in the morning several nights per week for the past couple months. I imagine his thought process goes something like this, “It’s pitch black outside. I’d reckon it’s about 2...no...3am. I sure am tired, but Mark and I have a pact not to let Mom and Dad get a full night’s sleep. Sounds like Mark is asleep, so that means it’s my responsibility to wake them, and I’ll be doggoned if I let him down. Not on my watch! Last night it was a good 20 minutes before they came to check on me, so tonight I better yell their names as loud as possible from the start.”

On the rare night when Luke doesn’t wake up, Mark will do his part and come into our room in the middle of the night to tell us that he needs a drink or he needs his blanket re-applied.

The other night he came in and told me that his socks were feeling tighter than usual. Sensing his ploy, I deftly countered by telling him that T-Rexes have historically preferred tight socks and he should go back to bed. Recognizing that he was beaten by this air-tight logic, he trudged back to his room and, pausing by Luke’s room, he whispered, “I did my best Luke. They’re onto us. But hey, I still have some diaper cream left in this tube. Do you think it’s edible?”

We hope that you and yours have a blessed Christmas and a 2016 filled with all kinds of good things.

Mike, Deb, Mark, and Luke