Christmas letter 2009

Merry Christmas everyone!

It's been a year of international travel for the Ethington family. Let's see there was the trip to Figi last March followed by the ski vacation to San Moritz the following month . . . Yeah right! Don't we wish? We did go to Williamsburg though. Twice.

Joel is a big second grader now and loves math. Bored with addition and subtraction he moved himself onto multiplication and fractions. In fact to motivate Joel to less enticing school work his teacher bribes him with promises of math games on the computer. He continues to enjoy soccer as long as he can be the goalie. If he can't be goalie he'd rather be the game's commentator noting the plays as they progress.

Earlier this year Joel found his personal nirvana -- The Game Show Network. All game shows all the time. What could be better? Mom and dad were fine with this until noticing the racy questions from the Newlywed Game. We had to put the kibosh on GSN (at least when aforementioned show was on). He turns eight on the first of January and we can't believe we've been blessed with his presence for eight years already. Time flies by too fast.

Eli is four and loves preschool and cooking. He's often heard saying, "Mommy can we make a recipe?", and is upset if he sees mommy cooking without telling him first. His favorite thing to make is mini banana muffins.

He enjoys "teaching" Cara wrong information too. Telling her blue is red, A is B and so on and then laughing hysterically when she repeats his misinformation. His Reign of Terror does seem to be waning though. But don't get on his bad side, you will pay for your misdeeds. Fortunately for him his tyrannical personality is wrapped up in a very cute package. He got the looks in the family.

Cara continues to come into her own. She's quite the jabberer and definitely has strong opinions. When I tried to sing her Barney's "I Love You" song the other day, she stomped her foot and said, "No Mommy I don't like that show!" Her favorite things are books, dancing, Dora and duck, duck, goose. A little actress she loves to pretend she is very mad or very sad to ensure Mommy and Daddy's rapt attention. She recently turned two this past month and we're so grateful to have her in our family.

From my perspective this is how Kelly's year has gone. Really busy working all the time for awhile, then a lull where he's not so busy, followed by a time period where he's super busy working 24/7. We're currently in the midst of the latter period now because Kelly is working on the migration which has nothing to do with birds flying south for the winter. Despite how busy he is, he always miraculously finds a lot of quality time for me and the kids. We vote him number one husband and daddy.

I'm mostly busy taking care of the kids, cooking (sometimes) and trying to keep a clear path through the house. I would like to say I've written the great American novel or accomplished something equally great in my free time. But so far that hasn't happened. There's always next year though. Stay tuned.

We genuinely hope you're enjoying a wonderful Christmas season and that you and your families are healthy and happy. We love hearing from you all, so please keep in touch!

Warmest wishes,

Kelly, Amy, Joel, Eli and Cara Ethington

About 5pm tonight I put my shoes and jacket on to go pick up some FC diapers across Herndon Parkway. I wanted to go sans children, but of course Eli piped up, "Mommy, I wanna come!"

"Oh Eli," I moaned, "Can't you just stay at home? I'll only be gone for a minute."

"Mommy, I love you. That's why I like to go places with you."

Needless to say he went.

"It's okay to make a mistake"

A week or so ago Joel and I were studying for his geography test. He took a practice test and concluded that the Arctic Ocean was near Antartica because the two words sounded so similar. When I told him that despite his good reasoning the Arctic Ocean was near the North Pole he flipped out because he had made a mistake. I told him it was okay to make mistakes but he was inconsolable. I felt so bad. Finally I said a little prayer outloud asking Heavenly Father to help Joel know it was okay to make mistakes. After hearing that he started to calm down and was okay. Then a couple of days ago when I was making sugar cookies, I flipped out a little myself when all of the cats' heads kept falling off. "Mom," I hear from a little voice in the living room, "It's okay to make mistakes." Such a full circle moment, and I know he gets it. He doesn't have to be perfect.

Today when I got up Joel had three shirts on. I actually thought it was two and I asked him to take one off. When he did I noticed there were still two more. When I asked him why he put three shirts on he said, "Because yesterday was the 30th day of school and 30 is three tens." I love that boy.

"Pumpkin Mad!"

Cara and I were walking around our little block and she noticed a neighbor's jack-o-lanterns. She walked up to admire them and turned around and said, "Pumpkin happy!" in her joyful, baby voice. Then she looked at another one and said, "Pumpkin mad!" and put on her own little angry face. She continued with the happy jack-o-lantern, "Pumpkin smiling! Pumpkin laughing!" So so adorable!

We just delivered some sugar cookies to LDS neighbors that moved in more than a month ago. After the delivery Joel and Eli wanted to climb on top of the car. One of the many every day objects that in their minds is really a jungle gym. When Cara saw them of course she wanted to climb up too and was mad when I wouldn't let her. She walked further down the sidewalk in front of the neighbor's mini cooper, "I want up car!" she said pointing to the mini cooper. I guess she figured it was just her size.

We made the sugar cookies from Eli's recipe book that he got for his birthday. They were so good even tho we had to substitute half of the butter with shortening since we didn't have enough butter, and Joel and Eli were so cute making them. It always makes my heart warm to see Joel having a good time doing something like that. Because there were the years when it was torture for him to participate in anything like that because he only wanted to draw circles and look at letters and numbers.

Instead of continuously flouring the rolling pin (spaghetti sauce can :o) and the cookie dough the recipe said to just put the dough between a folded sheet of parchment baking paper (which miraculously we had) and roll on top of it. I loved it. It was so much easier and so much CLEANER. It's definitely the way I will always roll out sugar cookies, pie crust or whatever from now on.

Traffic Ticket Yikes!

Eli's preschool starts at 12:35 pm. Two days ago we left at 12:32. Trying to bust a move I sped up to hit the yellow light. It may have been red by the time I got there but I was going too fast to brake. As soon as I turned the corner I noticed flashing lights in my rear view mirror. Yikes! A cop is pulling me over. Ugh, the only other time I got a ticket was in 1996. (Notwithstanding I rear ended someone that same year.) Hee! Hee!

So the cop gave me a ticket and Eli says, "Mommy when Daddy runs red lights the police never catch him cause he goes super fast!"

Eli calls pinatas funatas which I think is so cute.

Joel had soccer after school today for the first time this season. When I asked him if he had fun, he said, "Super fun fun fun!" and he was so happy which made me feel wonderful and made the wrangling of Eli and Cara (especially Cara) throughout the hour of soccer so worth it!

Joel got off the bus a couple of days ago and said, "Mom, if you get an email from Mrs. Larson, just delete it, don't open it." In his little mind that issue was all cleared up. Of course I immediately went to check my email and there it was -- the email from Joel's teacher Mrs. Larson. It said Joel had misbehaved that day and that he ran away from her when she tried to talk to him about it. He also refused to take his behavior chart home.

When I confronted Joel about it, he was unhappy. He had a pretty big breakdown and I felt so bad for him. I know what teachers consider misbehavior feels just like having a good 'ole time to Joel and he doesn't understand why his behavior is inappropriate.

But since that day, he hasn't had any problems with school. Anyway mostly I thought it was hilarious that he just thought he could tell me to delete the email and that would be that. Especially from the boy whose teeth I have to pull to find out about anything that went on at school that day. Love that kid~

I'm so Happy to See You!

Cara actually ate her dinner tonight. Hallelujah! Lately all she wants is her bottle and she refuses anything else. It's been stressing me out.

She was really cute this morning. I was sitting on the couch and she ran up and hugged me and said, "I'm so happy to see you!" Adorable. I realized she got that from me as I often say that to her.

Several hours later when I was unsuccessfully trying to get her to eat lunch I pointed out that she had a turtle on her shirt. She pulled it up to look and said to it, "I'm so happy to see you!" Even more adorable.

Julie gave Eli a cookbook for his birthday and every day he begs and whines incessantly that he wants to make a recipe. It's actually fun to cook with him though since he really gets into it. Today we made mini banana muffins for the second time. Yummy! We've also made the homemade tomato sauce (straight from fresh tomatoes), corn quesadillas, chicken boats, colored meringues, chicken satay and the chicken dippers. The great thing about it is Eli (also a picky eater) will eat anything that he helps make. He's really expanding his palate which is great.

Joel has come home happy every day from school so far. So much different from last year. And I haven't received any phone calls or emails from the school. Also so different from last year. He's not riding the regular bus again which really started and ended his day on a bad foot last year.

Lately I am so ready to get out of my townhome. I really want my kids to have a backyard. But our house has depreciated so much since we bought it, even tho we put a huge chunk down. I knew it could depreciate, but I never anticipated it to go this far. Our first townhome which is 1000 squre feet smaller and not as nice is actually worth more currently. Makes me sick. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.