Christmas Letter 2007

In the blink of an eye, 2007 comes to a close! I think it appropriate with a family of six to quantify the year a bit differently… that’s 550 or so loads of laundry, 365 dinners made and about 361 of them burnt due to child distractions (that’s my excuse!), several teeth collected by the Tooth Fairy, one toilet dismantled due to a plastic toy hamburger flush, hundreds of band-aids, 5 million attempts to get the kids to pick up their toys (it seems that way at least) and a hundred or more cleaned up spills… but more than that, about a million hugs, hundreds of belly laughs and giggles, a million exchanges of “I love you/I love you, too” and at least a thousand sighs that life is just great! *sigh* ***** Nicholas is finishing his last year of Elementary School. He would be a great student on the show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? Think you are smarter? From his actual math homework: Tyrone bought a bag of marbles. 1/4 of the marbles were blue, 1/8 were green and 1/5 of the remainder were yellow. If there were 24 yellow marbles, how many marbles did he buy? Pretty challenging for a 10 year old, not to mention the 10 year old’s parents! Nicholas is growing taller by the day… some of you wouldn’t recognize him! ***** Spencer toughened up for football this fall and did fine for a first year player, but thinks hockey is more his sport! He is a morning person and wakes up before the alarm, dresses himself, has breakfast and lets the dog out before I hit the kitchen! Thank goodness because I have my hands full with Nicholas, who is NOT a morning person and practically needs a cattle prod to get out of bed! Spencer is doing very well in school, but still misses his Maryland friends. ***** Kayla is growing up to be a beautiful and sweet little lady, although she has her moments! She is finding out some of the subtleties of the English language. I told Ray we needed Uncle Joe’s address and she exclaimed, “Uncle Joe is a boy. He doesn’t need a dress!” Hopefully her holiday movie watching will work out better than last year when Ray let her watch Prancer, a Christmas movie, and then turned to the Outdoor Channel after it was over. Minutes into the show, Kayla watched a hunter shoot and kill a large buck! She looked at Ray with sad eyes and announced, “They shot Prancer!” Scarred for life! She took matters into her own hands this spring and cut about 6” off her hair on both sides of her head- it looked like a bad mullet (if there is such a thing as a good one.) I straightened it out a bit and it looks cute. It could have been much worse like when I cut my own hair shorter than a Marine’s in kindergarten! Kayla has been enjoying pre-school four days a week. So has Mommy! ***** Krista has changed the most this year… potty-trained now and a little cutie pie. She got her two-year old shots, didn’t cry or even wince and was thrilled with the band-aids like she hit the jackpot! Later that week, Kayla got a shot and Krista yelled in jealousy in the doctor’s office, “I want a shot! I want a band-aid! I want a sticker!” Krista’s mind is always going getting her into trouble… she’s called 911 when playing with the phone (police came and everything), tried to stick a bobby pin into an electrical outlet, clogged the toilet the day of Kayla’s birthday party, gotten into my lipstick a million times and ends up looking like a clown, painted nail polish on the carpet and stuck an entire boxful of band-aids on her legs at once among other antics. I swear we watch her, but she is very opportunistic and there are many opportunities to escape your parent’s attention with three siblings! ***** We spent five weeks this summer on our new camping adventures to Lake Gaston, Myrtle Beach and all over! We are officially trailer trash! If you have kids, it is a great way to vacation although I ate my weight in s’mores at our many campfires! It is great to realize a memory in the making and we had many of those this year! We added to our family adventures buying our friend’s Sea Ray motor boat and have had a great time tubing with the kids… that is, until the water in Lake Norman receded drastically due to the drought! It is our luck to buy a boat during the worst drought in Charlotte history, but we are looking forward to next summer! ***** We count our blessings for this year has been another great chapter in the Gretz family novel! As they say, the rest is yet unwritten! Have a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2008!!! ***** Love, Ray, Gail, Nicholas, Spencer, Kayla, Krista (and Jake) ***** P.S. Did you get the answer to Nicholas’ homework? 192 marbles