If you are reading this…

…you likely did NOT get a Christmas card from us.

Last year, we did cards…and it cost a small fortune.

You see, we have large families and a big circle of friends…old friends, new friends, work colleagues…and it sorta snowballs into HUNDREDS of stamps.

Which translates into a lot of time and a lot of money.

Besides, it seemed kinda silly: most people read my blog so they already knew what we were up to and had seen all the pictures.

But as the cards trickled in, we realized that there were a handful of people who probably didn’t read the blog.

So I bought ONE box of 16 cards.

Went through the address book and tried to decipher who was unlikely to be a blog reader.

Here’s our letter. If you really need to feel like you got a card in the mail, print it out and hang it up.

Frame it even.

It truly is a literary work of art.

(Forgive the formatting of the pictures…I couldn’t get it to line up right.)

* * * *

Hello again!

This annual Christmas letter begins with a confession: I was going to skip doing Christmas cards altogether this year. *gasp* But my excuse is that I was going for the “simplify life and enjoy the real meaning of Christmas” thing this year. Until the steady stream of cards came in the mail…and with each one a pang of guilt. So there you have it: you all guilted me right into doing cards this year! 2010 was a year filled with firsts, heartache, and laughter. Our little clan is moving along steadily and doing our best to enjoy everyday moments amid the crazy.

Andy is still working hard at his aerospace consulting business. He travels often and even wears a suit somedays! Work is going really well and we’re all really proud of him. The kids burst into a chorus of cheer and glee when he walks in the door. They absolutely adore him. And so does his wife. :) In his spare time (wait, what spare time?!) Andy plays basketball and re-organizes his garage…again. Must be a boy thing.

I’m still home with the kids, but I do some work from home for a friend about 12 hours a week. I also still blog regularly and am currently fundraising for the adoption fund of a baby boy in Ukraine with Down Syndrome (www.liferearranged.com/blog). So far, Iweve raised over $5,000! Spare time is an Urban Legend in these parts with three kids 3 and under, but I’ve also gotten a little into photography and fiddling with Photoshop. But really, it’s all about trying to conquer the laundry and enjoying my babies while they’re still babies.

Henry loves his role as the big brother. While the kids do fight from time to time, they mostly play happily together. In fact, if the girls are taking an extra long nap, he will continuously ask “Mommy, are the sisters awake yet? Can we wake them up? I want to play with them!” He also tells me that “I’m just going to go check outside to see if it’s snowing yet, because then it will be Christmas.” He does this at least three times a day the last month. No matter how often I try to explain that it doesn’t snow in these parts of sunny California, his 3 ½ year old heart falls. “Well, then it will NEVER be Christmas if it doesn’t snow!” Poor kid. Beyond playing with his sisters and talking so much that we regularly bribe him “just please being quiet…for just five minutes…no talking…I’ll buy you ice cream if you just don’t talk…” it never works. Because then he asks 800 questions about WHY he’d get ice cream, and can he have candy instead, and WHY he should stop talking. Even more than chattering, Henry loves books about bugs, dinosaurs, airplanes and tractors. And of course, asking 1,000 questions about bugs, dinosaurs, airplanes and tractors. Andy and I have become experts in the fields of entomology, paleontology, aircraft design, and agriculture. Who knew having kids made you smarter?!

Lucy Joy holds true to her namesake. You just cannot be around Lucy without laughing. The girl has a personality larger than life and a sense of humor to be envied. She laughs loud, she cries loud, runs and jumps at full speed, and gives the biggest sloppiest kisses ever. LuLu can be regularly found wearing her brother’s three sizes too big rainboots and three beaded necklaces while dunking her entire head into any random body of water. She carries around dolls, gives them kisses, feeds them bottles…and then throws them into a puddle of mud and jumps in after them. She is the most extreme of our children. The girl is crazy. She is hysterical. She keeps every one of us in stitches. But for all her spunk, she also has the biggest heart and is the first to wrap her chubby arms around your legs and beg for kisses. She takes care of her “little” sister and always makes sure that Jill has a toy. Our family would laugh a whole lot less if Lu wasn’t a part of it!

Jilly Bean is cotton candy personified. The sweetest, most delicate girly-girl you’ll ever meet. She is our calm in the midst of the Crazy. Easy going and quiet, Jill knows how to melt even the hardest of hearts. Her giant blue eyes sparkle with every grin and I’m pretty sure that under that head of wispy blonde hair, she knows exactly how to work a room to her advantage. But just you watch out if you make her wait even ten seconds for her milk! That even temper of hers disappears! We call her Undercover Naughty: because she is 99% sweeter than sweet…so no one ever believes us when we say that she got angry or threw a fit! She has you all fooled! And she knows it! Ha! Jill still gets Physical and Occupational Therapy twice a week and is sitting unassisted and pulling up to standing in her crib! She is doing fantastic and progressing every single day. She did scare the holy heck out of her parents in June (on their anniversary!) when she had a Grand Mal seizure, and is now on daily seizure meds. We’ve been lucky enough to not have another big one again, so the meds are working beautifully*. But really, I truly hate to even include all of this in the annual Christmas Letter…because really, Jill is not defined by her medical chart. In fact, in everyday life, she is just Jill. Not Jill Who Has Seizures. Or Jill Who Needs Therapy. Just Jill. Undercover Naughty.

No big fancy vacations, no yachts in the marina, no boxes filled with hundred dollar bills under the bed. Just life. Just an imperfect, infinitely blessed life filled with happiness, laughter, yelling, crying, worrying, and Praise.

We hope this letter finds you and yours in similar spirits. In the trenches of life. But thankful for every minute of it.

Merry Christmas 2010,

Andy, Jeannett, Henry, Lucy, and Jilly

*Of course…three days after I mail out cards that talk about how how well everything is with Jill, she has another big seizure. Boo.

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jeannett

I'm a mom to four. A wife to one. I believe in story. I love telling you about mine and would love to hear yours. There's really no sense in wasting our suffering and not sharing in each other's joy. We're all in this together...even if it doesn't always feel like it.