Ruined!

About an hour after all our gifts were opened on Christmas morning Silas came to me and very sadly proclaimed, "Christmas is RUINED!" I asked him why and he said because all the presents were gone. So sad. I guess we'll have to wait 'til next December to fix Christmas.

Merry Merry!!

Jude is very excited about the toys Santa brought. Actually he smiles pretty easily.
Caleb and his "lump 'o coal". Apparently he's been naughty this year!
When the boys opened their gifts from the Jeffers it STOPPED Christmas. They were so into reading them that Caleb and I were putting things together before we opened any more gifts.
So next year for SURE we're getting cute Christmas pj's. These just don't quite cut it.
Do you think Silas could use some pj's? Even if he had them he would only wear them for 5 min. The kid loves to be naked!!

It was a great Christmas. Elias tried to get up at 1am. We had the "talk" with him this year so he wouldn't be made fun of for being the only 4th grader still believing. Even with this knowledge when we told him to go back to bed he proclaimed, "But Santa CAME!". It was as if we'd never had our little discussion. We did tell him that you have to believe to receive so that he won't spoil it for the younger kids but seriously...he had jingle bells in his eyes all month. We finally got up @ 6:30 and we spent about 2 hrs. opening gifts. We'd open and play and open and play. It snowed all Christmas day so it was an awesome White Christmas! Hope yours went as well as ours!

Bring on Christmas

Well, I can now say that I am ready for Christmas. We had our Christmas program at church today and I was asked to sing a solo. Not a so low. I really enjoy public speaking but public singing isn't something that I enjoy. In fact, I will admit that it makes me nervous. I usually sing to myself in the shower and no one really has to listen.

Whoever coordinated the program did a great job though. They put me right after the primary. I guess they figured as long as I didn't pick my nose and wave to my family while moving my lips without singing, that I would be okay. If that's all I had to do, then it was success.

Christmas 2007

It’s that time of year when everyone starts to think about all the letters they are going to have to read from people they haven’t seen in years. Don’t worry, I won’t deviate from the norm on this one. By the time you are done reading this letter, you will know anything and everything important that happened in our lives this year.

On a good note, Tami isn’t pregnant anymore and that means that our fourth and FINAL son Jude was born in September. He has been the model baby during the day. He hasn’t yet realized that darkness and night time are for sleeping but he will get around to that. I was going to describe all the amazing things he does but when I started to list them, they all involved bodily functions and I don’t want this letter to go that direction.

Silas is now 3 years old. We are extremely grateful he left the terrible twos behind but we aren’t so excited that he extended it to the terrible threes. I think his first word was something like “blank head”. For some reason, he enjoys calling people bad names. It can range from stupid to nice, back to dumb but they all end in head. I thought that if he was going to pick up swear words, he would use the ones that he hears in the house. He has been spotted several times in the neighborhood helping the neighbors “water” their trees. We are trying to teach him to be a little more discrete about that. It’s a dead giveaway when he has his pants around his ankles and his little white bum is hanging out. Did you know that flowers don’t thrive on that type of water?

Isaac is our tenderhearted 7 year old. He has been very helpful with his new little brother. Isaac played soccer this year. I used to think that soccer wasn’t really a sport. Now I know a little more about it. At this age it’s kind of like running cross country in a group huddle. The amazing thing is that they actually use a ball and they have boundaries. I think the boundaries are there so parents can keep track of the kids and they don’t have to follow them all along the racecourse. The ball is there so they know where to run. He also plays the violin. I always tell Tami that she has to be firmer about making the boys practice their instruments. That’s easy for me to say, I don’t have to listen to them practice. The violin has to be one of the most beautiful instruments when it is played correctly. It is also one of those instruments that should be practiced in the morning before school while I am at work.

Elias lives for sports. He is in the fourth grade this year and gets really mad when people ask him if he is a second grader. I always used to think he would make up for being short with smarts because he does so well in school but he picked football and basketball as his favorite two sports. The football season went just like last year. We were the worst team in the league. I tried to get Elias hooked on golf but I’m probably not the right one to teach him that golf is a relaxing gentlemen’s game. We only golfed once as a family and I had one guy yell at me for just about hitting him with a ball. Let’s just say it wasn’t the right time for him to yell at me while I was trying to keep two boys and Tami moving through the course while making sure Silas didn’t get hit with a ball. Elias just started basketball and he has to put up with having a dad as a coach. I feel sorry for him for that but I made it known before the season that if anything goes wrong on the court, it will be his fault. I also made it known that one player can make a mistake and not hear anything from me. Elias can make that same mistake and he will get yelled at. So far he seems to be okay with that but he sure does get poked in the eye a lot. His eyes seem to water daily.

Tami has been busy with her book clubs, bunko night, dinner exchanges, PTA meetings, volunteering at the local shelter, cooking for the homeless, sewing for the less fortunate and anything else she can do to help. Yeah right, with four boys and a husband who travels almost every week, she has been doing her all to keep the house from burning down. So far she has been very successful. She has managed to continue bunko night once a month. I keep telling her bunko night is kind of like a poker night but she doesn’t seem to go for that. I asked her if she would like to try one more time for a girl and we haven’t tried since.

I am enjoying my job. I travel a lot but we seem to do pretty well with it. When people ask me what my hobbies are, I look at them and tell them I have four boys. They then get the wrong idea, ask me if we have a TV and then I have to explain that the boys have sports, scouts, instrument practices and all the other extras that come up. It is fun to take all the boys to a store together. By fun, I mean miserable. The fun part is the reaction of all the people in the store. When we had three, everyone thought that was kind of cute. For some reason, the fourth puts cute over the edge, to completely annoying.
Merry Christmas from cousin Eddie!!!! (National Lampoons Christmas Vacation)

So forth, so on, so, what not

I know every region has their filler words that they like to use when a person doesn't have anything else to say. I finally realized that the words here are so forth, so on, so and what not. I was in a presentation a couple of weeks ago and I heard one of those filler words or statements in every sentence. I was looking at the customer wondering if he was thinking "if they say that one more time......". We tend to use them when we get nervous or what not. It seems like we also use them when we really don't know what we are talking about and so forth. So.....I decided to start watching what I say because they can really sneak up on you when you least expect it. So I am going to make changes starting today and I'm going to say what I mean and so on.

Master Card

Pure Bred Puppy $300
Accessories $150
Micro Chip $40
Shots $50
Classified add $75

Learning for the third time that you don't really like dogs and your kids don't either.......priceless!!!!!!!!!!

SOLD!!

So, the breeders were out of town. They came back and they took the dog BACK!!! Yippee. I, Tami Zimmerman, will never get another dog again!

Puppy Anyone?

Yes, we were wrong to think we could handle it. I made the decision to keep my life simple 3 days too late! He's a really good dog, but I've found out that a 2 month old baby, very attention needy 3 yr. old and puppy are a bad combonation. I know you all knew it... too bad we didn't consult you first. So, I have a FREE pure breed mini schnauzer, white male, 13 wks., crate trained, house trained, with all the BRAND NEW puppy gear (crate, bed, food bowls, food, treats, leash, harness,brush, pooper scooper, toys...hmmm I'm sure there's more). He's had his 2nd shots and he has a microchip that we can have registered to you!!! My expensive mistake is your gain...anyone??? Please save me before I go completely insane! What a great early Christmas gift! Seriously, spread the word!

Work Christmas Parties

My work Christmas party is tonight and I don't think I'm going. I know I should go and support everyone and mingle just to make a showing but I'm having a hard time with it. Tami can't really go because Jude would not be good at something like that. So, I would be going to the party alone. That doesn't really bother me either, because I know some of my coworkers will probably go through an escort service to make sure they aren't going alone. The other issue is that it is being held downtown Denver about 3 blocks from our office. I shouldn't be a complainer but I don't like going downtown on the weekends because I work there. Lastly and most importantly, I have a hard time finding anything related to Christmas in the party. All the booze that everyone can drink and a big dinner. Some people probably do celebrate Christmas that way so it feels right at home for them. Alright, enough complaining about the Christmas party. I just needed a place to vent. I'll tell you how it went tomorrow.