Holiday 2007, or Hey! Where Did My Year Go?!

Wow, it's Christmas 2007 already. I've heard it suggested that time seems to go faster as you age because each successive year is a proportionally smaller part of your total life. I'm not sure if I believe that, but something seems to be making the years go by faster. I was just reading the Holiday 2006 post here on Cobapple, and wow - quite a few changes.

Regular readers of the blog know that the boys are both growing up quickly. Logan just turned six a week ago, which means he's practically a teenager. He's already halfway through kindergarten and doing quite well. He was even "cordially invited" (that cracks me up) to join the Firecracker program at his school, which is sort of a Kindergarten AP kind of thing. Apparently school these days is just like the professional world - if you do a great job and really excel, they just give you more work. He seems to really like kindergarten, though, so hopefully the Firecracker program will be even more for him to get excited about. His reading ability has progressed quite a bit this year, and he's reading entire books and doing a really great job of it. He still gets a little frustrated at times, and I don't think he's quite reached the point where the light bulb goes off and the whole "world of reading" opens up to him. He still wants us to read bedtime stories and he still seems to prefer picture books, but I think the reading bug is right around the corner. In other news, Logan has also already lost two teeth, and earned himself $4 (inflation's a killer). He lost one in the middle of his birthday party, bravely allowing me to pull it out. The rest of the year's been pretty normal for him. Logan's big obsession right now (and for the past year, really) is Star Wars - I'd say 90% of his birthday was Star Wars-related, from the cake to the plates and cups to the presents. Kind of neat to see him excited about something that I was into as a kid.

Liam is full speed ahead into his "terrible twos" period, and man is he good at it. He's right in there with Logan all the time, wanting to do all the same stuff as his big brother and not standing for any inequality. Around this time last year he was still struggling with a lot of words, but let me tell you - those days are over. He's talking up a storm now, and has even managed to learn how to say Logan's name properly (it went from "nnn"-click, to click-"ogan", to "Nogan", to "Logan"). He still tends to call him Nogan a lot, but Jill's been working on it. Liam has usurped Logan's adoration of Scooby-Doo, and loves to read Scooby-Doo books and watch shows and all that. He's also a whiz on the computer, which is kind of scary. It's amazing to see a not-yet-three-year-old kind of lounging at a computer, working the mouse and navigating around nickjr.com or one of his kids' games.

It was a pretty good year for Jill and me. We ran our triathlon back in April in Emporia, KS, and although it was probably the hardest physical thing either of us have ever done we both finished. I think both of us would like to give it another crack at some point, but the training is pretty hard to manage with the kids in tow (particularly the swimming). In May we celebrated our ten-year wedding anniversary with a 12-day trip to Italy. It was Jill's first time overseas and my first time actually vacationing overseas, and we both had an amazing time. Pictures are in our blog archives if you missed them. We visited Rome, the Cinque Terre, Florence, and Venice. Twelve days was the perfect length of time (maybe even a day or two too long) and we got to see almost everything we had planned on. It was great having that much time to ourselves, and I'm already thinking about the next one in a few years.

Jill's still keeping up with the boys here at home and has continued to be involved in a lot of activities with her church groups. I finished up my last year at Boeing on the JDAM program, after the new year I'll be moving on to another position in an engineering rotation program that Boeing recently started. I'll be spending 2008 working in F-18 Business Development, which is essentially sales and marketing, so I'll finally get to put that MBA to use. In 2009 I'm scheduled to go into a Propulsion job in Flight Engineering, where I may get to finally put that aerospace degree to use. It's a really great opportunity and I'm pretty excited about it.

As in years past we'll be spending the holidays in Kansas City, so look us up if you're in the area. Hope everyone has a great holiday season and a great start to 2008. Cheers!

A Little Bit Older, A Little Bit Wiser

It's been a big weekend so far! Logan is now 6 years old. This morning, he came into our room and immediately shared this bit of newfound wisdom:

"I know why it's called underpants...because it's under your pants!!"

Yep. That's our boy!

In the afternoon we got home and Jill still had some work to do on the cake, so we entertained Logan as much as possible. Not only did he get to do a little birthday celebration at school, it was also Crazy Hair Day. I don't know, I think he should consider wearing it like that all the time.

Eventually we got the party started and Logan started into the presents - but not before a little starting excitement. While eating his corn dog, he started freaking out because his loose tooth "felt really weird". I snatched it out of his mouth (with permission) and once he calmed down the gift-ripping-into commenced.

There was a lot of Star Wars stuff. Some clothes, a few books, a new Battleship game, and some Castle LEGOs. After opening all the loot and playing with it for a bit, I had to have some cake, so we carved into Jill's Boba Fett cake.

Logan and the Boba Fett cake

Another beauty shot of the Boba Fett cake because Jill INSISTED

Liam partook a little too much of the cake

Logan fielded a lot of calls during the evening. Liam managed to talk to the callers even more.

Happy Birthday, Logan!

It's December

Just thought you might need a couple of pictures to tide you over until we get our 2nd annual holiday blog letter out. We've been trying to do some December-ish things...watching holiday movies, making (and drinking) homemade hot chocolate, reading Christmas books, and assembling Christmas puzzles. All the while we've been enjoying music of the season too. It's been fun.

Logan is getting excited about Christmas, and occasionally he remembers that he has a birthday this month too. I'm not sure Liam knows what's coming, but he does know that when a toy catalog comes in the mail, he needs to get out his crayons so he can circle every toy on the page. (Logan's apprentice learns quickly!) Both boys are quick to point out the holiday light displays all over town.

This morning, Liam woke up and asked for "a bowl of Beeps" and "The Grumpy Movie". (That's a bowl of Crispix cereal and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas.) What a nice way to start a December morning! After filling his belly and giggling at the Grinch's dog, Liam headed off to Mother's Day Out. At craft time, he made gingerbread cookies...a house and a boy. He was extremely proud of his creations and was kind enough to share his yummies with Logan. Don't they look delicious?