Mary's "Trick"

The other night when the kids were getting ready for bed Mary decided to show us her new trick. She'd kneel on the floor and then "walk" her legs up the wall. Of course Alex caught on quickly. He is half monkey.

Well Adam also wanted to get in on the action. Even though he is quite monkeyish himself he couldn't quite figure it out, but it was cute to see him try.

Colorado Native

A few Sundays ago I was reading the paper while I ate my lunch after church. I came across a column some guy wrote describing all the things he's done that now qualify him to be a Colorado semi-native. He loves Colorado but had the misfortune of being born somewhere else apparently. His list mostly seemed to involve things like climbing 14ers (mountains over 14,000 feet), skiing "black" trails, spending ridiculous amounts of money on a bike, and clothing removal.

At first I thought the list was ridiculous. I don't enjoy skiing or climbing really tall mountains. I don't have any plans for removing my clothing in odd places any time soon either. Then I realized that I don't have to prove anything because I have the birth certificate to prove I'm an actual native.

Doug, however, is not a Colorado native. He moved here when he was 7. So I came up with a better list for him to earn his "native" status.

• Doug has actually climbed a few 14ers.
• Doug is a die hard Broncos fan and not just until his home state team comes to town (Chicago Bears).
• Doug has cheered for the Nuggets even through the really lean years. (We're talking a 17-65 season.)
• Finally, he's helped produce 3 of the cutest little Colorado natives you'll ever find.

So I think Doug has more than earned his native (not just semi-) status.

Future PGA Star??

As promised, here's our video of baby Adam golfing. We filmed this last Christmas at my mother-in-law's house. As you can see his technique was a little lacking, but it's not too bad for a 9-month-old.

Gratitude

So today I'm feeling grateful for the great Christmas we had. As some of you probably know, for the last few months Doug's been working on starting his own insurance agency. So that means we haven't exactly been raking in the cash so we knew we wouldn't have the financial resources to have a big fancy Christmas. (Not that we ever maxed out the credit cards to do Christmas in the past, but you get my meaning.) I have been extremely fortunate and have had a steady stream of transcription work to do, but there's still only so much I can do when I have two extremely energetic boys at home and have to oversee homework when Mary gets home in addition to all I have to do keeping the house at least moderately clean, laundry, etc.

However, we have been very blessed this Christmas by many of our friends and family. Some family members were more generous than they probably would have been in the past, which was nice. Doug helped out with a reading group at Mary's school and one of the other parents gave him her son's old Geotrax (spelling?) set, and it was in mint condition. The batteries even still worked. Another friend gave us a fancy marble track when they moved this past summer. (We hid it quite well for several months.) I think those two toys are the most popular with our kids, and we didn't have to pay a dime for them.

Another friend decided to be our Secret Santa and did "The 12 Days of Christmas" for us. Our kids were so excited waiting for the doorbell to ring every night. Whoever it was, they were tricky. I somehow missed them on a night I was sitting right in front of the living room window with the blinds open while I was having a Relief Society presidency meeting at my house. I had to walk about 5 steps to the door and still didn't get even a hint of who they were. We have no idea who they were, but they made the last couple weeks extremely enjoyable for our family.

Needless to say, we have been extremely blessed this year. I doubt our kids even realized that we spent a fraction of what we would normally spend on Christmas. If you were one of the
"helpers" mentioned above, please know we are very grateful.

Hopefully next year we'll be in a better position to help others. We enjoy that too.

The Baby

Adam will probably always be our baby. I still call him "Baby" and he's heading quickly toward 2. He appears to be the athlete of the family. He's always been fascinated with balls and loves golf. He was "swinging" a golf club before he could walk. (You'll see video proof later.)

The Middle Child

Alex is our middle guy. He's in preschool. He always keeps us on our toes with the new things he thinks up. He wants to be a "fixer" when he grows up. He figured out how to take off light switch covers when he was 2! This may pay off nicely when he's older and can fix anything that breaks around the house.

Alex also is a budding photographer. This is his self portrait.

Our First Born

Mary's our oldest. She's in second grade and loves science. The insect song she sings just cracks me up. Here are a few cute pictures of her.

Rant about Toy Packaging

So before I post anything great with pictures I'm just going to mention that I HATE the way they package toys anymore. They're all taped down with horribly stiff plastic twist ties. I know they don't want people to be able to easily steal a piece out, but good grief!

It Finally Begins

We've been planning to create a blog for ages now and we finally have time to do it on Christmas Day. So here we go. The title of our blog was a collaboration of efforts. Some of Doug's work friends have called him Chappy, which frankly I think is dumb, but when he suggested we name the blog Chappiness I kind of liked it. Then of course I added the "Pursuit of" part because well I like the Pursuit of Happyness movie with Will Smith and let's face it we're all pursuing happiness. Anyway, hope you enjoy the blog!! (I promise we'll be more creative when we have cute pictures of the kids to go with it.)