Merry Christmas from the Krugers!

Merry Christmas from the Kruger family!

Wow, look at that, another year, another Christmas Letter.  I’m totally turning into my Mother here, but these years go faster & faster every year.

Cecily turned 4 this summer and continues to be our “spirited child”.  I was excited for her to turn four and round the emotional-basket-case-corner, but so far, four is turning out even more emotional-wreckage-y than three (who knew it was possible?!)  We currently have Cecily in full-day Pre-K 2 days a week, with an additional half-day on Mondays.  She enjoys school once she’s there, but she does not love it the way her brother did.  She does certainly seem to enjoy her Tuesdays & Thursdays at home with Mama’s undivided attention.  In the spring, we signed Cecily up for ballet.  She loved the class and especially loved the sparkly tutu she got for the recital.  After the Summer Olympics, Cecily decided to switch to gymnastics, so we’ve been doing gymnastics once a week since October.  Cecily loves all things fancy & sparkly, and she loves playing with babies and her friends.  Like good Gen-X parents, we try not to pigeon-hole our children into society’s confining gender roles; our children, on the other hand, seem perfectly happy in their traditional roles.  This summer, Keith was trying to play with both kids in the backyard.  Keith & Parker were kicking the soccer ball around the yard, but every time the ball went near Cecily, she’d grab it and say “Here’s the Daddy ball, and here’s the Mama ball, and this is the baby ball ‘wahh, wahh!’”

Parker turned six this summer and is officially a “big kid”.  He loved his last few months of Pre-K this spring and started Kindergarten in September at our local school.  Parker LOVES school.  Parker loves everything about school, he’s made several new friends and he loves all the routine, rules, and activities involved in being a Kindergartener.  Parker continues to love all things sports related, and after an evening at his friend’s house he recently discovered that you can watch BOTH the Seahawks AND the Huskies play football on the TV (who knew?).  As long as no one tells him about baseball on the TV, I think we’re good.  Parker played T-ball this spring and had a blast.  As a leftie with a decent arm, we have big plans for his future in baseball, I’m just not so sure I’m ready to give up 2-3 evenings a week of my time to watch him play!  Parker is our rules & plans kid, he loves playing any sort of game, giving him a constant refrain of “Mama, can you play a game with me, Mama can you play?”  He also loves structure; the other night, he told me his plan: “Step 1: put on my pajamas, Step 2: Go to Bed, Step 3: Go to Sleep, Step 4: Wake Up, Step 5: Have breakfast…”  We have many days with such detailed plans, he’s a boy after my plan-loving heart.

This summer, I started watching my brother’s daughter, Fiona, during the day while everyone is at work, and I continue to watch her before & after school as she & Parker are in Kindergarten at the same school.  The three cousins very quickly moved from cousins-behavior to sibling-behavior.  They have a lot of fun playing together, and they have a lot of fun fighting together.  It has been great for the kids to have their cousin around, but having that third body in the house every day has officially stamped a “NO” on the whole “should we or shouldn’t we have another baby?” conversation.  In anticipation of Fiona “joining” our family, we finally became official parents and bought ourselves a Grey Honda Odyssey mini-van.  This car is the joy of my life, and at least for the first few weeks it made getting the kids ready & out the door infinitely easier “who wants to ride in the mini van?” “Me, Me, Me, let me get my shoes on and run downstairs!”  Sadly, this novelty has worn off in the past few months, but carting 2-6 kids around has become infinitely easier since we got the van and I try to fill it as often as possible.

Keith is still working at the same engineering firm downtown (I think this statement will just be copied & pasted into every Christmas letter from now to eternity).  He continues to move into management, this year has had some growing pains, but he’s turning into an amazing leader in his company…whether he wants to our not!  In June, Keith & I celebrated our 10 year anniversary!  We had big plans of taking a big vacation for our 10-year; but once it came time to plan it, I realized that anything less than a 10-day Caribbean cruise was just going to feel like settling. So, we ended up sending the kids to Grandma’s for a few nights and had a mini-stay-cation at home, then went up to Bellingham for a night.  Maybe next year we’ll combine my 40^th and our 11^th Anniversary for a big trip, we’ll see.

This has been an interesting year for me, I have one kid in Elementary and one in Preschool.  I’ve let go of most of my Preschool responsibilities but haven’t yet stepped up to any Elementary responsibilities.  When everyone asked me what I was going to do when both kids were in school semi-full-time, my response has always been “Nothing, I fully intend to sit around the house reading magazines.”  Well, I don’t seem to be getting much done, but that magazine stack doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller either.  Honestly, I sometimes wonder what I do with my days, but they do seem pretty busy?!  I have greatly enjoyed having a few minutes to myself and luxuriating in the wonder of going to Costco ALL ALONE. In the spring, I did start selling Norwex (all-natural cleaning products), but by “selling” what I really mean is “buying all sorts of stuff for myself at a discount”, so maybe not my next career. On October 19^th, after a lengthy fight with Alzheimer’s, my (Julie’s) Mom went to be with Jesus.  It’s been a long journey and we’ve done plenty of grieving over the past 10 years, so the loss isn’t super acute, but it still feels different to know she’s not around.  We had a lovelyservice in November and it was a joy to see so many people from my childhood come to celebrate my Mom.

This summer, we took the motor home out for several adventures.  On our first outing of the season, the deadbolt managed to break itself in the locked position, leaving us to get in & out through the driver’s door (in the pouring rain, what kind of weirdo camps over Memorial Day in the PNW?).  Never a lack of adventures when you motorhome!  We took it over to Lake Wenatchee for a few days in August (more rain), and a few weeks later, took our longest “road trip” so far, leaving Skagit Valley at 9pm and driving straight to Brian’s house in Beaverton, Oregon, arriving at 2am for our niece, Amber’s 1^st birthday party.  In retrospect, not the brightest plan ever, but there’s only so many weekends in summer and we were determined to squeeze every last moment out of them.

We hope that this letter finds you well with prayers for a Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year!

With love from the Krugers:  

Keith, Julie, Parker (6), & Cecily (4)