Dear Cousins and Friends, I wish you’d have a nice Christmas. I hope you get what you want for Christmas. This year I went on a hike with my mom and dad and looked at my neighbor’s view of the city. On my birthday, we went to Jumpstreet where we jump-jump-jumped. There’s a tiger slide and a skateboard slide and a jungle. I learned how to do cartwheels this year. I liked when Daddy made a fort of snow with his snow plow last winter. I like to go sledding. Now I like to play with my friends. I like to do monkey bars and roller skate. Merry Christmas, I love you.
Solomon
I hope you have a nice Christmas. I hope you get a Christmas tree. Our Christmas tree has lots of lights on it and ornaments. We got our Christmas tree on our land. I liked when I turned 5 this year. I went to the Butterfly house and held a tarantula and we went to the Aquarium for dinner and we saw lots of fish. I like to go sledding and ride my big-kid bike. I like going to school because we learn new things. We learn new songs and we do play plans. I can climb the rock wall and write my name “Valancia.” I can do head-stands in the swimming pool and swim in the deep end. Merry Christmas.
Valancia (Cici)
“HEY!!” “This” “Mo-peese” “Apple” “Ice” “Hot” “Dada” “Mama” “Bubba” “Titi” “puppy” “baby” “Up!”
“Oh WOW!”“ Mwa (kiss)”
Samara
Merry Christmas! 2013 was a good year for our family. It’s been a joy to watch each of my children grow, change, and become little people. Cici is independent, sweet, bossy, highly emotional, and likely the best big sister in the world. I continue to be amazed at how far she has come since her challenging beginnings. Solomon is funny, wild, loving, and suffers from an inability to do what you ask him to do the first time. While I expected Cici to be an incredible older sister, Solomon is an equally sensitive and protective big brother. It’s been one of my favorite parts of parenting to watch Cici and Solomon love-up on Samara with an incredible amount of patience for their age. Samara has fit into our family very well. She knows how to use her fingernails, her scream, and her large personality to get what she wants. I love her blue eyes, mischievous laugh, one-move bounce dance, and how she jams out in her car seat to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.
Kim and I celebrated our 10th anniversary last summer. Needless to say, I outkicked my coverage with her. I’m an extremely lucky and happy man to have Kim in my life.
I continue to work at CCAI Adoption Services running their Haiti Haiti
I hope that 2014 is a great year for everyone!
Patrick
I’m sitting in our cozy living room, fire crackling in the woodstove. Samara is happily screaming on the carpet, entertaining her siblings who reward her antics with laughter. Cici and Solomon have been dancing around in Santa hats making up Christmas songs. Patrick is checking sports scores on the computer following games by noting numbers as they flick by—a poor second to actually watching the game on ESPN which we lack. J Our Christmas tree looms above us, tickling our two-story ceiling, making up in height what it lacks in girth. From its branches, years of ornaments gifted and home-made dangle from its branches. The tree is so tall we had to pre-decorate the top half on the floor before hauling it upright…. PERFECT. I feel like a little kid again, successfully talking the Father of the House into a ridiculously enormous tree. J
We have survived a full year and a half in our mountain-top perch, loving the snow, the wildlife, the silence, the vast views, the starlight. Given our crazy lives, it’s not a practical perch, but serves that need for adventure that our otherwise comfortable existence lacks. On days off, the great outdoors is just beyond the window… a hike ready if we step outside. Mr. and Mrs. Fox routinely visit us, teasing Sadie-dog relentlessly. We’ve watched bucks but heads in the trees and a mother bear escort her cubs across our yard. The pine and peace of the forest hugs us and brings us back to center.
This fall marked my 3rd year at Clinica Family Health Services. I have only deepened my love and appreciation for the incredible team of people that work closely together to serve our challenging patient population. I work with exemplary and fun-hearted folks who pour their hearts, energy and humor into their work day after exhausting day. Because of them, we provide nationally recognized primary care, and work is a place fun to be. My patients continue to entertain and inspire me, surprising me with their resilience, tickling me with their sense of humor and challenging me to coach them into happier, healthier lives.
We’ve had an incredible year of being parents. Cici amazes us in her emotional maturity, mothering anyone lucky enough to come across her path. She has deep, delicious dimples that pop out when she laughs at her brother and sister or when she is chasing her daddy around the house. Solomon will climb anything from rock wall to playground equipment to bookshelves. He works very hard to make people laugh, and still loves to cuddle when the lights go out. Both Cici and Solomon love preschool as much for the friends they’ve made as for the new things learned. They keep us running with their love of climbing, swimming, running, playing all things “ball” and the-ever popular dance parties. Samara has wowed us with her transformation from infant to a little person taking command of a room. She is at that frustrating age where she doesn’t yet own the vocabulary to express her desires. If we guess wrong, she responds with a vigorous head shake “no” and a scream. If we DO happen to get it right and hand her what she so desperately needs, she confirms our choice through hysterical giggles. She adores her sister and brother beyond any other and runs toward them with arms stretched wide for a morning or mid-day hug. After a road-rash first month of walking, she is now a nimble little mountain goat with a personality 3 times her tiny frame. Cici loves the swings, catching butterflies, and chocolate milk; she dislikes the END of swim-time, hurt-feelings and crust. Solomon loves wrestling, birthday parties and pizza. He dislikes sleeping in his bed, being cold and shots. Samara loves dogs, bath-time, tickles and mac-n-cheese. She dislikes loud noises, wet diapers and vegetables.
This year was “Lucky 13” of being in love, year #10 of living that love in marriage. Although we lack the time with each other we crave, I adore partnering with Patrick is in this crazy swirl of sleepless nights, chaotic days and alternating work schedules. Patrick likes his chainsaw and splitting wood, teasing us all, and long hikes. He dislikes anything loud, solo parenting on baby-puke day, and the threat of future fertility.
In the last year, we had to say a lot of final goodbyes. So many people I know lost someone close this year. With loss brings reflections of past and present. I lost my grandmother a year ago; she nicknamed me her “clone”—an honor I’ll forever try to live up to. She lived a dazzling life and her feisty spirit still makes me laugh. Her commitment to family and tradition lives on in the ties she bound tight. I love that all my children met her at least once; Cici and Sol often talk about GG watching them from somewhere beyond the highest mountain peak. We also lost my uncle this year, the person who influenced my world view remarkably. He was the reason my brother and I fought racism before we even understood really what it meant. Both my grandmother and uncle suffered long-fought illness, and in this year of saying goodbye, we remember them in their most vibrant, most laughter-drenched, most influential state. The spirit of who they were inspire our future as much as they lit-up our past.
With loss, I am again reminded that change is the only constant in life, and the importance of the present is ever-felt. We have hopes for future adventures on the horizon, but for now are comfortable letting them play out in due time while we keep our eyes wide open on the here and now as our family grows, laughs, cries, screams, learns and loves together.
Night falls on the forest beyond the window, the glow of candles and Christmas lights take center stage. In the warmth of this evening, I send you love and hope for a beautiful year. May you recognize the best in the people around you, and enjoy the simplest of comforts. Thank you for your own light in our lives, the love and laughter you’ve provided to our past and present. May all of our futures be warm and bright.
With Love,
Kim
