"Christmas Letter 2013"

THE Christmas picture. (Pre-Toby, obviously.)

It's probably pretty obvious why the title is in quotation marks. It's not Christmas, this is not a letter, and 2013 is long gone. I've never actually written a Christmas letter before, and it was nothing short of miraculous that we got New Year's cards/birth announcements out in the month of January. Even so, I don't often document what my kids are doing (beyond the short Facebook status), and I wanted to take a minute to capture them right now (even if only for my own benefit!). Without further ado, ten things each about my three oldest sons:

Levi
1. 4 and a half years old, 38" tall, 33 pounds.
2. He spends most of his days building "gauges." Gas gauges, thermometers, speedometers, tachometers, gauges to show how strong the heater vent is blowing, to show how much power his "computer" has left, to show how long the dryer will be on, and always, always, clocks. He builds them out of blocks and the letters and numbers out of our puzzles. For example, see the car dashboard below: E and F for the gas gauge (empty and full), H-W-M-C for the temperature gauge (hot, warm, middle, cold). The car is currently in reverse; those letters represent park, reverse, neutral, drive, squirt (for the windshield wiper fluid), garage (to open the garage door) and . . . okay, I don't actually know what the F is for.

3. He sings or hums all day long. He has favorite songs on each of the albums we listen to regularly, and the favorite almost always corresponds with the longest song on the album (and he can tell you the length of all of them, in minutes and seconds). His most favorite songs of all right now are some of the Keith Getty hymns we sing at church.
4. He has been taking piano lessons since August and has participated in two recitals since then. Those of you familiar with Suzuki will be delighted to hear we have completed the right hand Twinkles and moved on to the left hand.

5. His favorite books include the Frog and Toad books and the Magic School Bus books.

6. He really loves to wear his new (at Christmas) belt.

7. He has recently become an extrovert, to our great surprise. Until a few months ago, he would only look at people's wrists (to check out their watches). That's still the biggest draw, but he's now likely to jump right into conversation with the nearest adult (often leaving me to explain his completely random stories).

8. A month or so ago, he memorized his 50th Bible verse and received a prize at church.

The prize: a knight, to represent learning 50 "fighter verses." 

The Word of the Lord is a strong tower!

9. He's doing second grade math and handwriting, and recently completed a first-grade spelling program online. 

10. He is convinced that he only likes turkey bacon, not regular bacon, and I don't have the foggiest idea why. (Other than, "he's crazy.")

Owen

1. 3 years and 3 months old, 36" tall, 32 pounds.

2. He steadfastly believes that he is only two years old and adamantly refuses to turn three.

3. He spends most of his days copying whatever Levi is doing, though with significantly less mathematical understanding. Left to his own devices, he builds with train tracks or Duplos (our budding engineer).

A recent creation.

4. He loves to pretend that toys are food, and distributes them to everyone in the room. (For example: he hands me a yellow Duplo and says, "here, Mommy, have some butter.")

5. His most favorite song ever is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but his favorite hymns are To God Be the Glory (he knows pretty much all the words of all three verses) and O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.

6. He likes to wear cozy pants and shirts with nothing on them (solid color). I have to beg and plead with him to wear anything else (though the every-morning tantrums have mostly subsided).

7. His favorite person in the whole world is Grandpa (my dad).

Morning snuggles.

Driving the bus at the children's museum.

8. He is convinced he does not like butter.

9. He does not bribe. Levi can be eating the biggest cupcake or a whole bowl of ice cream right in front of him, and Owen still will not choose to finish his dinner. As such, I have no idea how I will ever convince him to use the potty, so I haven't even tried yet. I am convinced, however, that some day he's going to be a rock-solid man who stands up for what's right and isn't swayed by peer pressure.

10. He loves beef in most forms but hates chicken in nearly every form.

Silas

1. 19 months old, 32" tall, 28 pounds.

2. He spends most of his days pulling puzzles off of the puzzle rack and dumping the pieces on the floor.

3. He can complete most of the peg puzzles (and will sit still long enough to do one or two at a time, if in the mood). Also, he can count to ten (though he often skips number six) and identify a handful of letters and numbers by sight. It seems that if the biggest boy likes to play with numbers, then so does everyone else!

4. If this is even possible, he is our silliest boy, and loves to tease his parents and his brothers.

5. He learned to climb up on the kitchen chairs the same week that Toby was born (as in, the same week I became unable to jump up and rescue him at a moment's notice).

More climbing skills.

6. He's using more and more two-word phrases, most of them relating to the baby in some way.

He loves to hold the baby. 

7. He's wearing bigger diapers than Owen (being shorter but bigger around the middle).

8. Like his brothers, he loves to sing, and has made up his own version of To God Be the Glory that has us all laughing every night after dinner.

9. He thinks it's hysterical to bat his eyelashes at me while he takes bites of food.

10. He calls both lids and light switches "on-off."

I don't have 10 things to say about Toby yet, but I can't let this go without a picture of the unbelievable cuteness that is our fourth son:

All boy.

Merry belated Christmas? Happy belated New Year? Non-holiday blessings to all!