The Battle of the Card Stock

By now most of you should have gotten our Christmas letter. Some of you may be wondering why on earth our Christmas letter was printed on card stock. Perhaps you were thinking that we are just really stuck on ourselves and think that our letter is more important then most others that you will receive. Well that might be true...just kidding. To tell this story properly I have to go back, back, back...to June. We live very close to a Postal Copy Center. I needed to make some copies on card stock , so I went in and here is the conversation that I had with the lady.

me: "I would like 25 of these on card stock please."
lady: "On what?"
me: "On card stock."
lady: "What is that?"
me: Stunned silence, then "You know, thicker paper."
lady: "We don't have that."
me: Huh?!

Now fast forward to December. I try to find cute Christmas paper at Walmart, but let's face it, that store is just to big to find anything that you are actually looking for, so I give up and think I will just have them run it off on green paper. I go back to my special Postal Copy Center. I give the man my letter and tell him I would like it run off on green paper. After he gets the copies going, he brings the first one to me. Here is the conversation that I had with him.

me: "This is card stock. I didn't want it on card stock, I just wanted normal paper."
man: Comes over and shakes the edge of the paper as if to prove something to me and says, "This is normal paper."
me: "No, this is card stock."
man: "Do you want me to stop the copier?"
me: "Yes."
man: "I can't. It would mess up all of my other copiers."
me: Huh? What? Why? What just happened here? (This was all said in my head. On my face was just a look of consternation and annoyance.)

So I get home and start trying to stuff envelopes with stupid card stock. The envelopes that came with our Christmas cards required folding the paper over as well as in thirds. Believe me, this is not easy to do with card stock. Well I get about a third of the way done and all of a sudden our Christmas letter is superimposed over someone's exercise schedule. I start flipping through to see if the rest are like this, when about 6 pages down, what should I discover but REGULAR PAPER. So apparently to work at a copy center you do not need to know the difference between regular paper and card stock. In fact, paper is paper...why don't we just stick all the green paper in one stack? Oh well. So if you got your letter on card stock, now you know why. You should feel lucky. Now you can treasure it forever without having to worry so much about it ripping. For those of you who just got normal paper, please do not feel sad. We love you guys too.

Sweet and Sour

Sweet: Last night Eric made up song for each member of the family on the piano. Each one consisted of him playing random notes, and basically singing the family members name over and over again. He would sing one and then say "Now I sing Andrew's song....Andrew, Andrew, Andrew...." You get the idea. We couldn't go upstairs to bed until we each had our song. Yeah, sweet!

Sour: Yesterday morning I got a bowl down for Eric's cereal. It is his favorite bowl. It is brown and shaped like a mitt. Well he sat down, threw the bowl off the table and said, "I not want brown bowl." He said this over and over for about 20 minutes. Finally he got interested in something else and I cleaned up breakfast. Not wanted to start anything, I picked up the bowl and put it back in the cupboard. Eric saw me. He went and got a chair, pushed it over to the counter, climbed onto the counter, got the bowl back out, went and sat back down at his seat, threw the bowl off the table and said, "I not want brown bowl"!!! Um...not so sweet.

The Spirit of Christmas

We had our ward Christmas Party a couple of weeks ago, and they told us to dress in time period clothes. Andrew decided to dress up as a wise man, and we had Eric dress up as a shepherd. They had a program where they acted out the Christmas story from Luke, but the audience was only involved in the singing. Andrew did not understand this, and all night he kept asking us when it was going to be time for him to go and give his present to the baby Jesus. We kept trying to tell him that we weren't involved in the program but it just wasn't sinking in. In his mind, he was a wise man so he needed to give a present to baby Jesus. The way they did the program was they would read from the scriptures, and then whoever they had just read about, e.g. Mary and Joseph, shepherds, etc would make their way to the stable while singing a song. Well when they read about the shepherds Andrew said, "Okay Eric, it's your turn." We kept trying to explain it to him that we weren't in the program, but he wasn't having any of it. He was just so excited in a sweet and innocent way to go up and present his gift. How could I refuse? So when they read the part about the wise men, I walked up with him so that he could set down his present in front of the baby. Luckily the lady who played Mary has a son Andrew's age and she was so gracious, and we got A LOT of "Ahh, isn't that just the sweetest thing you've ever seen" looks on our way back to our seats. I told Reed, this was one of those experiences that made me want to cry, and yet was pretty embarrassing too. I was proud of him. He is such a good boy. I love his innocence.

Last week we chose a name off the Angel Tree and we went to Walmart to get presents for a little boy. On the way there we kept talking about how we were helping this little boy have Christmas and how we were all going to feel warm and fuzzy inside for doing something good. Well after we bought all of the stuff Andrew asked why he didn't feel warm and fuzzy inside. So we tried to explain some ways that he could feel the Spirit. He said he didn't feel any of that, so we told him maybe he would feel it when we dropped off the presents. Well we dropped the presents off the next day, and he asked again why he didn't feel warm and fuzzy. Reed and I really wanted him to feel good about what we had done, so we prayed that he could have good feelings, and be able to recognize the Spirit. So the next day we had FHE. We sang Christmas songs and took turns telling each other some of the things we were most grateful for that Jesus has done for us. Well after we had each had a couple of turns Andrew said, "I feel warm and fuzzy now." That was one of the neatest experiences I have ever had. Reed and I both teared up and told Andrew that he was feeling the Spirit and that we both felt it too. Prayers are answered.

Birthday's!

Andrew and I both recently had birthdays. Mine was first so I will start with it. Andrew is so great. As soon as he woke up he went downstairs and made signs and pictures for me and hung them up all over the house. He got treats out of the pantry and put them by my spot for breakfast. Then he set up different game stations. Here is a list of the different birthday party stations that we had:
1-Bounce the ball into the shoe
2-Pin the feather on the turkey
3-Read the books
4-Read the comics
5-Play with the cars
6-Play with the animals
7-Eat breakfast.
Pretty much it was the coolest birthday party ever.
When Reed got home from work he brought me these beautiful flowers. Sweet!

Andrew turned 5 a couple of days ago. He decided that he wanted to have a friends party this year, so this was our first experience with a friends only party. It was Reed and I versus 1o little kids. It actually went really well. Our neighbor girl told me that it was the funnest party at someone's house that she has ever been too. So there you go. We are totally awesome apparently.

Andrew wanted a Lightning McQueen Cake, and he helped me make it. While he was mixing up the batter with the beaters he said "Hey mom, this looks like your tummy." Anyone who has given birth can probably sympathize with me on this observation by my 5 year old. Unless you were one of those freakishly lucky people who didn't get 10,000 stretch marks. Anyway, lets just say that knocked me down a couple of notches. What I wanted to say was "Hey, you're the one who did this to my stomach, and any spot that you left free of stretch marks, Eric came along and took care of!!!" I didn't though. I just smiled and helped him make an AWESOME cake. By the way, he and Eric are totally worth the loss of my flat stomach.

Also I just have to tell you what Andrew requested for his special birthday dinner. He asked for a peanut butter sandwich, peanut butter pretzels, carrot sticks, mickey mouse cheese, and apple slices. YUM! We love you Andrew.

Larry Boy and Thomas the Train

Eric loves Thomas the Train, so that is what he was for Halloween. Reed and I made his costume on Friday night, and when he woke up the next day and saw it he was so excited. Eric was totally amazed by the Trick-or-Treat thing. When he realized that people were putting candy into his bag, he let out a little whoop of delight and did a jig. It was totally awesome and hilarious. All night he kept telling people that he was Thomas, and then at one of our last houses a lady said, "Are you Thomas?" and Eric replied, "No, I Eric."




For several months now Andrew has wanted to be Larry Boy from VeggieTales for Halloween. For the benefit of those who don't know who this is, I will explain. Larry the Cucumber turns into a superhero, Larry Boy, who has plungers for ears. Well we went to 4 different stores chasing the elusive mini plunger that everyone claimed existed for garbage disposals, but to no avail. So we had to make do with making our own plungers. Not many people knew who Andrew was, but those who did got a huge kick out of it. Also as a fun bonus to his costume, he could whack people just by turning his head quickly.

Andrew's Awesome

If you know Andrew, you know that he gets VERY VERY nervous about change. So we were understandbly terrified about how he would deal with preschool. He started a couple of weeks ago. He was so nervous, but when I went to pick him up that first day he said, "Mom, you came too soon." It really was an answer to prayer.

Also if you know Andrew, you know that when he finds something that he likes he becomes obsessed with it. Well lately he has been absolutely obsessed with big cats, and it has now expanded to all wild animals. Every week he checks out several books about wild animals. Some of them have talked about animals that are endangered. This really concerned Andrew, and he kept asking us what we could do to help the animals. We told him that one thing we could do was make a donation to a foundation that protects animals. So he ran to his room and started dumping out his banks. When I asked him how much he wanted to donate he said, "I can give all of it if the animals need that much." It was so sweet. He ended up donating $10 and Reed and I each matched it. He chose to sponser a tiger. But he wanted to help more animals, so we told him that instead of a birthday present from us we could donate more money. He decided that would be good, so he chose to donate to help the wolves for his birthday. Then he asked if he could do the same thing for one of his Christmas presents. He is such a good boy, and he is a great example to us. Throughout the day, he would just squeal and look at us and say "I helped the animals!"

Fall Fun

Andrew decided that he wanted us to have a really scary decoration for Halloween, so we decided to continue the awesome tradition that I had growing up of making a headless man for the front of the house. Anyone who lived in my neighborhood growing up probably remembers this totally cool tradition. Especially the year that we put the guy on the roof. I can't tell you how many times that thing gave all of us a near heart attack. Anyway, Andrew and Eric had tons of fun making this little fella. Although Andrew says it isn't scary it's just fun.

We went to a farm last week that had lots of fun fall activities. We got "lost" in a corn maze, rode in a corn cob train, rode peddle carts, ran in a hamster wheel, saw pig races, rode horses, and more. We were all very worn out and very sunburned at the end (because mom of the year forgot the sunscreen).


Andrew and Eric at the pig races.


My boys in the hamster wheel.


Me and my boys in the train. It was a tight squeeze. I was very glad when this ride was over and I could unbend my body.

Reed and Eric riding a pedal cart.

Andrew on the pedal carts. He totally knocked a lady over and didn't say sorry because he said he was too shy.