Christmas Letter 2014

Your long awaited Christmas book has arrived! Pull up a chair and relax! It’s that time of year again!

Let’s start with Sebastian! He is a double digit midget this year! My youngest baby is 10! And with that extra digit, he has grown physically and his personality has grown. He has these long legs that he never had before. I look at him sitting in the van and I am like where did those legs come from? Guess what? He still loves video games and could spend his entire life playing them. He has been making basic programs on Khan Academy that I am pretty darn impressed with. I don’t understand half of what he says whether it is about programming or building something in Minecraft or whatever the computer talk is about. I have mastered saying, “Uh huh… uh huh” very well. I sound almost convincing. He still has a fantastic group of friends. Our boys have gotten easier this year. Less refereeing and more playing. We still have him in karate and he is up to his blue belt now. Overall, he likes the class except that it interrupts his computer time and well… we are okay with that – so he will continue and hopefully keep learning a lot. Even though he is growing up on me, he still lets me sing to him each night before bed. Sometimes he wants to say no, but then he misses it! Not all grown up, just yet!

Savannah aka Savy as she likes to go by these days has turned 16 this year! She has come out of her comfort zone the past 6 months. She put herself out there to just meet people and do new things. Once again, she joined student council and this year she is the Secretary. She is involved in two very different homeschool co-ops.  One is large and has a bustle of people and classes.  The other is small and a bit calmer. She worked at our local haunted house scaring people several nights each weekend.  This suits her! She likes to be loud and obnoxious and meet people. Getting made up all creepy and then freaking people out brings her a ton of joy! Can’t say that it doesn’t creep me out when I pick her up and her face is all bloody and scary.  Not my favorite thing to do, but Tim and I gladly drove her back and forth night after night.  Speaking of driving, not so much happened this past year, so the new plan is drive time this year. Dad is going to be helping more with that, so maybe next Christmas letter will tell you that she is a new driver. She has decided she wants to go to school to be a physical therapy assistant. This year we found an online school that offered a good athletic sports medicine class. For her first time, she is doing an online class. She is trying to figure it all out, but it is going to take a little more time. Oh, but it is going too fast! Please stop!

One of my silly memories of Timmy goes back to when he was a little boy about 7 or 8.  We had him in tae kwon do. He had a very serious teacher who was on the slightly short side for a grown man. One day, Timmy came in with a lose tooth.  It was just hanging by a thread. He was fussing about how sparring was going to make it fall out. His teacher, Master Dennis, told him to pull it out. Oh my goodness! What a fit he threw! He did not want to pull that dang tooth out! No way, no how! Master Dennis stood over him and demanded he pull it out. He pulled it out and was not very happy. Fast forward about 10 years… we were at a superbowl party and none other than Master Dennis was at this same party.  My now 6 foot plus tall, 260 lb son walks right up to Master Dennis and leans heavily on his shoulder – just towering over him. He very calmly says to him, “Wanna make me pull my tooth out now?” Oh my… I laughed so hard.  It was just the best memory. It still makes me smile every time I think of it. I still talk about my boy Every. Single. Day. and I will until I take my last breathe on this side. I still hear him talk to me in my mind. I hear his laugh and I feel his hugs. Someday it will all make sense.

My sweet husband is plugging away. He works and he rests and then he works again. It is the pattern of his days. Sometimes crazy, sometimes lazy, but it has been a good balance this year. It seems our rental houses go in spurts of all needing him to make repairs and then there will be a lull of quiet time. When is he is not working, he putters around with his hobbies. Always a plant or a fish or a something that grabs his attention and he messes with that for awhile. As some of you know from Facebook, he bought himself a brand new Jeep Wrangler this year. It was his first new purchase of his choice. He has always gotten the family car or what the family needed, but this time he got to just pick what he wanted.  It made him nervous, but it made me very happy to see him get to do something for himself.

I am older, fatter and a bit greyer. Sometimes my brain is swirling in 5000 different directions. I am teaching at our new homeschool co-op and managing rental properties. We started back to school in July and plowed through 17 weeks straight without a week off. I am enjoying our extended winter break immensely. Here is the not so sing, song, cheery, blah, blah, blah part of my letter. I love homeschooling. I believe in it and at the same time, wow! I am tired of asking, ummm, more like begging and pleading for kids to do their work. I know it is a test and I may or may not pass this one. Let’s hope January brings renewed strength. We did a good bit of running around this year which is one of my very favorite parts of life. Lots of Disney, even a couple days with Tim there. That is always a huge treat for our kids to have dad at Disney. We hit the beach and the mountains and took a very relaxing cruise. I am constantly aware that exploring new places is this amazing gift that needs so much gratitude.

There is this song by Need to Breathe called Multiplied. It has this one lyric that goes like this:

God of mercy 
Sweet love of mine
I have surrendered to your design
may this offering stretch across the sky
And these hallelujahs be multiplied.

When I hear this, it literally brings tears to my eyes. Possibly because I am an emotional, crazy lady, but I think it is more than that. It makes me cry because I am finally, little by little, with each moment learning that there is not a whole lot I can control in life. Sure, I pay my bills, brush my teeth... all that good stuff. But in the big picture – I have surrendered to His design. People die and it just plain, flat out stinks. We lost our dear friend, Laurie, to cancer this year and I hate it. I realized that there was nothing we could do. The pain was just going to have to come and we were going to have to all get through it. So, I have surrendered, but at the same time that I can’t control the bad stuff – I also can’t always control the good stuff. And there is good stuff. Really, amazing and wonderful stuff happens every day. And for that I say “these hallelujahs be multiplied”.  Now, nobody is perfect. I still try to control so much. I still feel better with a plan, checklists, order and neatness. I just know that this awful pain that comes with the trials of life is worse when you try to control it. Peace comes when you can accept the way things are, not what you thought they were supposed to be. With that thought, I leave you and say hug your family and friends! Tell them you love them! I wish you peace and joy!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

                              Tim, Kari, (Tim II), Savannah and Sebastian
               In memory of my sweet and wonderful Timmy 3.5.89 to 5.14.10 
        Until I see you again... I love you and miss you more than any words can say.