Happy New Year

February 2, 2009

Greetings, all-

Happy New Year. We’ve been a touch busy, with the newborn baby, Christmas, New Year’s and lots of flag football. Enough excuses, but attached are some photos and below is a short update.

Mark had a party shortly after his birthday on November 5. With some guidance, he decided to have his friends bring a gift for the Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots program, rather than keeping the toys for himself. Shortly before Christmas, he went to the Embassy and presented the gifts to one of the members of the Marine Security Guard Detachment. We were quite proud of him, and he seemed pleased to know that kids who don’t have many toys would benefit from his birthday.

We went to a Christmas craft fair a little before Christmas. The boys got to see Santa arrive on a big fire truck after having flown in over the fairgrounds. At the same fair, Chris hopped onto a bungee bounce, with no idea that some 4-year-olds are afraid of things like that. Annette, who was still pregnant with Joy at the time, told the attendant that she wanted to jump on the same contraption to facilitate the arrival of the baby. We now know what a terrified Kenyan looks like.

Little Mark and Chris were in the pageant at church on Christmas Eve. Luke didn’t want to be in the pageant but insisted on dressing like a shepherd like his brothers. There’s a photo attached. Mark and Chris went off to the back of the church in their costumes to process up the aisle. By the time they came back up, Chris had somehow lost his entire costume. Both did well, though.

Christmas was excellent. The kids all had a good time, and the kids are still at a stage where they pause for 20 minutes between gifts to play with the new toy. The night before, the boys had left cookies and also carrots for the reindeer. I hear the reindeer had a good time choking down a huge carrot in the middle of the night. Joy slept through most of Christmas, and her brothers were happy to open her gifts for her.

We took Joy on her first safari a couple of weeks ago. We went out to Lake Nakuru for the day. I think Mark, Jr. is used to travel – I was packing the car for the day trip when he marched up and said, “Daddy, how many days and how many nights?” I had the bright idea of opening all the windows for the all-day game drive. We spent the following Saturday in a family car clean-up, getting the quarter inch of dust off every surface.

Annette and I were having a regular Friday afternoon date a couple of weeks ago when the maid called and said Mark and Chris had locked themselves in our bedroom when they were supposed to have been napping. We think we would have panicked before our fourth child, but we discussed the situation, decided they had a bathroom inside the locked room and weren’t in danger, and finished our drinks at a casual pace. We got home and I had to climb onto the roof to get the key through the window. I was traveling last week and called home after having been gone a day or two. Chris got on the phone and said, “Daddy, I didn’t lock myself in the bathroom today!” I didn’t know why this was a big deal until Annette got on the line and explained Chris had indeed locked himself in the bathroom on the day prior. Glad to see he learned from locking himself in our bedroom.

The boys are big into flag football these days. I play in a game most Sunday afternoons when we’re not at the horse race. I got a football from the boys for Christmas, so we’re getting some game time in the yard. The boys have gotten into playing our own game afterwards, with socks hanging from their pants. Chris seems to run backwards all the time, and Luke sits on the ball a lot. Mark has a good arm.

We’re enjoying having another girl in the house. Annette had said a long time ago that if we ever had a girl, she wanted some socks that looked like Mary Jane shoes. Thanks to Google and amazon.com, I was able to figure out what that meant and ordered some. I got some points, and Annette is enjoying dressing Joy in pink. I’ve taught to boys to say that if a boy ever asks their sister for a date, they’ll “put him in a headlock and drop him like a sack of concrete.” Hasn’t been an issue so far, but I’m glad we had the three boys before the baby girl.

We had Chris’ first court date on Friday the 30th. It was an adventure, with Annette and me both being pretty sure that the lawyer said we didn’t need Chris there until he asked, thirty minutes before we saw the judge, “where is the child?" Thanks to Annette’s mom, who is visiting, we got Chris there just in time. It went well, and we’re one step closer to finishing this adoption.

Enjoy the photos,
Mark