A Peters Family Holiday Update on Not-Writing Holiday Updates

Dear Friends and Family,

Every year our family receives a number of lovely holiday cards, newsletters, and updates from dear friends and family around the world, many of which are finely crafted masterworks of the genre: the details invariably suggest successful and authentic lives, the style scrupulous editing, and the tone understated, humorous, and punchy throughout. Attached photos showcase attractive ladies, unoffensive males, and utterly photogenic little ones, with all their natural radiance aglow and buttoned buttons in a row. We feel blessed to know such fine folk.

Yet each year our family seems to fumble in returning the favor. Maybe it is that we can't find stamps. Maybe it is that we can't find photos of our family sitting still. Or that we don't know what to write about, stumbling to find the right balance of braggadocio and humility (btw, is edited-in humility humble?). By this time, we realize it is not exactly a holiday update anymore if we send it in mid-January. You start to see the problem snowball.

Here is the crux of the problem: why write holiday updates? Surely the genuine joy of sharing our lives with loved ones is more than enough reason. That is a sufficient reason for sure, but, given everything else, we are not sure the whole package--stamps and all--is justified. So this year, we're cutting the difference.

To business:

1. We hope you are thriving. We miss you. We care for you. Really, we do.

2. This year the Peters are NOT issuing a holiday update.

3. Instead we are offering a modest gift: a theory of not writing holiday updates.

If all you, like we, need to not write a holiday update is a theory, we dedicate this theory to you. May you confidently never write a holiday update again.

To be fair, it's a repackaged gift. Below we rip off and repurpose the Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski's delightful essay "Theory of Not-Gardening" (Harpers Magazine, November 1990, 32). Even if you do no more than read this sentence, do check out the original, which our friend Patrick Iber brought to our attention a couple years ago (and who is hereby absolved of any and all liability by association). The essay is hilarious; and this post, a weak tribute to the late Kolakowski. You'll also notice that all the good stuff, the structure and sometimes whole passages, in what follows is his. We even added a couple paragraphs of our own and have taken ideas from here, here, and here.

Now before any copyright hawks turn to the literature on fair use and satire, first consider this more probing philosophical conundrum: How else should one go about writing a theory of not writing except by not writing? To actually write a theory of not-writing would be self-contradictory. To appropriate another's writing, on the other hand, for the purposes of theorizing not-writing performs the theory itself.

Toward a Theory of Not-Writing Holiday Updates

There are many who, like us, hate having to decide whether to write holiday updates. We need a theory. Not just a shallow rationalization for not pulling oneself together just enough to remind your friends that you exist and are thinking warmly of them. No, none of that. We need a real, genuine theory in posse, a foundational bedrock of reason upon which to base a platform of profound inaction and not-writing. After all, not writing holiday updates without a theory is a shallow, unfulfilling way of life. Which is worse--not writing an update without a theory or actually writing a holiday update--we cannot tell. Having tried both, we emphatically recommend neither. The alternative to not-writing holiday updates without a theory is to write a holiday update. However, it is far simpler to have a theory than actually to write a holiday update.

A theory must convince on the strength of its intellectual virtues. Yet different theories and different virtues appeal to different people. Therefore, we need a number of theories.  

Marxist Theory

"Capitalists would corrupt the minds of the toiling masses, poisoning them with their reactionary holiday 'values' of wishing your loved ones all the season's abundant joy, love, and peace. They seek to persuade the workers of the world that writing holiday updates is a grand 'pleasure' and thereby occupying their leisure time and keeping them from carrying out the proletarian revolution. Besides, they want to imagine that their year’s activities are worthwhile accomplishments--and that by so boasting of, say, landing a bourgeoise tenure-track professorship in a local establishment of higher education, investing in first private property (such as modest home, a four-door Odyssey minivan, and a home theatre setup with awesome wall-filling projector image and wall-rattling sound), and thus cloaking the economic power relations of a happy, nuclear family in a sentimentality of veiled subjugation--they will, through the omnivorous cycles of self-destructive capitalist consumption, win themselves over to the side of the owners in the class struggle. To write holiday updates is therefore to participate in the great plot aiming at the ideological deception of the masses. Therefore, do not write holiday updates! Q.E.D."

Psychoanalytical Theory

"Fondness for writing holiday updates is a typically American quality. Only a pathologically repressed knave will not immediately see why this is so. America was the first country to outright pursue the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny, an insatiable desire to expand the westward frontier, killed the natural environment. Nature is the symbol of Mother. By killing Nature, the American settlers and their descendants--including but not limited to young families recently settled in the residential south midtown area of Tulsa, Oklahoma--committed matricide. They are unconsciously haunted by feelings of their own guilt and, through a sort of reverse osmosis, an Oedipal guilt of their murderous forefathers; so they try to expiate their crime by ritually professing their bitter regrets (e.g. dearly missing all our friends from New York and Jerusalem over the last six years) and unanchored ambitions (e.g. establishing roots in a lovely, welcoming, treed neighborhood with a great public school and park in the backyard), all uttered in the pseudonatural confessional session known as the holiday update. Keyboards and cameras are the priests and pearly gates of today's self-confessional. To write holiday updates is to participate in this mass self-deception. You must not write holiday updates. Q.E.D."

Existentialist Theory

"People write holiday updates in order to give human life the semblance of order, to 'domesticate' and 'civilize' the raw and savage essence of human existence. This, however, is a desperate and futile attempt to transform being-in-itself into being-for-itself. Not only ontologically impossible, this is morally inadmissible escapism, a dishonest attempt to collapse the insoluble distinction between being-in-itself and being-for-itself. To write holiday updates is to imagine that one can successfully boast of one's own children--such as Aaron (8), a recently baptized, superlative second-grader, who maintains his voracious reading habits and now cub-scout-supported fixation on fishing and hunting; Elliot (5) into a literate socialite, soccer player, and dapper drawer among his pre-kindergartner peers; and Libbie ("2 and 3/4" in her words) into a multitalented and daring darling constantly threatening to outpace her big brothers--without effacing this distinction and in the process hopelessly denying their irreducibly human ontological status. To write holiday updates is either to exist in bad faith or it is to contradict Heidegger. Either way, holiday update writing is thus morally wrong. Q.E.D."

Structuralist Theory

"In antiquity, knowledge work was divided into the pair of opposites work/leisure, which corresponded to the distinction writing/speaking. Early knowledge classes, such as Mesopotamian priests, translated texts in silence at work and calmly conversed in the leisure of their home. In modern societies the axis of opposition has been flipped: People now work by speaking (e.g., by teaching undergraduates, raising hooligans, and other attempts to persuade the stubborn) and rest by writing and reading (e.g. online news, long-form journalism, and novels such as Great Expectations, Lord of the Rings, and the Chronicles of Narnia). Such distinctions are crucial in maintaining the conceptual framework whereby people structure their lives. To write holiday updates is to work at writing in one's leisure time and thus to confuse the distinction between writing and speaking, leisure and work; it is to blunder, indeed to destroy, the structural opposition that upholds the order of modern thought. Holiday updates are folly. Q.E.D."

Analytical Philosophy

"In spite of many attempts, no satisfactory definitions of 'holiday updates' and of 'writing holiday updates' have been found; all existing definitions leave the analyst adrift in a sea of uncertainty about what belongs where. We simply do not know what exactly a holiday update and writing a holiday update are. To use these concepts is therefore intellectually irresponsible, and to actually write a holiday update would be flat out indefensible. Thou shalt not write holiday updates. Q.E.D."

Economic Theory
"Writing holiday updates produces at least two social goods: good will and relationship maintenance. The value of these goods, however, is intangible and hard to calculate. After accounting for both overhead costs of stationery, envelopes, stamps, landfill use, recycling, server storage, electricity, and other hidden costs as well as the opportunity costs in time and labor of the writer, reader, and post office, it is abundantly clear that the direct and indirect costs of writing holiday updates sums to a net capital loss. Holding constant for currency inflation, the conversion ratio from Israeli Shekel to US Dollar, and Euro crisis uncertainty, it is clear that it would be a far more efficient expenditure of scarce resources to just "poke" the recipients on Facebook or better still, do nothing at all. It is inefficient and irrational to write holiday updates. Do not do it. Q.E.D."

Deweyan Pragmatism

"To write a holiday update is no more than to act within a cultural convention that recapitulates the tired old dichotomies inherited from the Greeks: practice and theory, activity and passivity, holiday cheer and post-eggnog slump. This dichotomy is patently false. All theory is a form of practice, however subdued and meditative its profound engagement with civilization may appear; conversely, all practice is an expression of mental purpose, an excercisement of theory in the sphere of actions and actions. To not write a holiday update is thus to write a holiday update. Regardless, you are already done. Drink egg nog instead. Q.E.D."

Badly Written Theory
"It cannot be denied that this (yes, actual) passage may contain an ample justification for not writing holiday updates--or, say, anything else. To not repeat it here, thus, would be an affront against the exegetical quest for meaning making. Q.E.D."

(The following excerpt comes courtesy of D.G. Leahy, Foundation: Matter the Body Itself, State University of New York Press, 1996; more winners in the Bad Writing Contest here.)  

"Total presence breaks on the univocal predication of the exterior absolute the absolute existent (of that of which it is not possible to univocally predicate an outside, while the equivocal predication of the outside of the absolute exterior is possible of that of which the reality so predicated is not the reality, viz., of the dark/of the self, the identity of which is not outside the absolute identity of the outside, which is to say that the equivocal predication of identity is possible of the self-identity which is not identity, while identity is univocally predicated of the limit to the darkness, of the limit of the reality of the self). This is the real exteriority of the absolute outside: the reality of the absolutely unconditioned absolute outside univocally predicated of the dark: the light univocally predicated of the darkness: the shining of the light univocally predicated of the limit of the darkness: actuality univocally predicated of the other of self-identity: existence univocally predicated of the absolutely unconditioned other of the self. (The Peters: if you have read this far, please seek help.) The precision of the shining of the light breaking the dark is the other-identity of the light. The precision of the absolutely minimum transcendence of the dark is the light itself/the absolutely unconditioned exteriority of existence for the first time/the absolutely facial identity of existence/the proportion of the new creation sansdepth/the light itself ex nihilo: the dark itself univocally identified, i.e., not self-identity identity itself equivocally, not the dark itself equivocally, in “self-alienation,” not “self-identity, itself in self-alienation” “released” in and by “otherness,” and “actual other,” “itself,” not the abysmal inversion of the light, the reality of the darkness equivocally, absolute identity equivocally predicated of the self/selfhood equivocally predicated of the dark (the reality of this darkness the other-self-covering of identity which is the identification person-self)." 

Communication Theory
"Writing holiday updates is a complex, rich social activity that involves multivariable, mutually embedded social processes. To properly theorize the writing of holiday updates, and thereby to position oneself toward properly examining the value of holiday update writing as a social activity and a personal pursuit, future communication theorists will do well to draw from the sociology and anthropology of letter writing, rhetorical and literary studies, visual studies of family photography, cultural studies and audience reception theory, the political economy of the post office, cultural studies of the holiday season, critical analysis on the infrastructural aprioris enabling letter writing, sending, reception, and reading, among a host of other associated fields of inquiry. However, a problem arises: no known pre-tenure communication theorist recalls any other communication theorist ever receiving tenure for related studies. Furthermore, no known communication theorist, after tenure, has ever wanted to pursue such studies. Thus, without even the promise of a literature, it is currently impossible to properly analyze and thus justify the communication act known as holiday update writing. Until the field magically fixes itself, it is advisable to not write holiday updates. Q.E.D."

And for kicks:

Twilight Theory
"Bella Swan, overwhelmed by the banality of high school cliques filling the gloomy pacific Northwest, falls in with a coterie of tall, dark-haired, pale-faced brooding vampires--a fantasy trope about the unfulfilled promise of sexual satisfaction and immortality. For some inexplicable pseudo-biological reason, one of said vampires--most bizarrely, one with austere good looks--stares at her and she stutters in return. Thus the plot begins. This relationship develops and indeed seems bound to last for the rest of her adolescence, which appears to require no less than immortality on the part of the viewer/reader to endure. This relationship builds in hot, awkward expectancy to the point it is suddenly interrupted by a second contender--strapping and shirtless--for Bella's rapt stuttering, thus fulfilling and generalizing her adolescent desires to become the object of male competition and at once the cause of stereotypically male violence. Two entire species renew their arch-animosity for one another on her behalf. Bedlam, starring, and stuttering ensue. In perpetuity. Vampire, werewolves, and adolescent girls do not write holiday updates. That's good enough for us. Team Edward! Q.E.D."  

Authors' note:
In their enthusiasm, sundry heretics have dared to suggest that these theories may be generalized to apply to other spheres of inactivity--such as not replying to emails, not sending thank you notes, not updating Facebook, not posting on blogs, and perpetually postponing ever-mounting writing projects, dissertation, book projects, and the like, all of which we seem to excel in. Nothing could be further from the case. To generalize such arguments, however tempting, would be intellectually lazy and inadmissible--tantamount to taking someone else's parody, plagiarizing it, and calling it your own. For shame. Again, how else could a theory of not writing be written? Go plagiarize your own theory of not writing!

This is not a holiday update: 

This year we moved from the Middle East to the Midwest--or whatever you want to call that part of the country that defines itself most often as not-Texas. We loved our nine months in  Jerusalem, traveling throughout the area, from the northern border with Syria down to the Red Sea, and from Jordan to the Mediterranean. With friends and family in tow, we soaked ourselves in the local politics, culture, history, cuisine, and peoples. We will gladly talk your ear off if you dare to ask for more. A few posts: year in review, last Sabbath, Rome, Tower of David, and Bethlehem politics, among others. After completing a year-long postdoc at the Hebrew University, Ben took a tenure-track position at the University of Tulsa, a small private university, where he is intensely happy settling into teaching, writing, and traveling professionally (more at petersbenjamin.wordpress.com); Kourtney continues to thrive while raising a gaggle of children, concocting healthy meals graced with exotic spices, driving a fossil-fueled minivan named Ulysses, running in Vibrams around the neighborhood, and forestalling abundant math teaching potential on the horizon (you know where to look for more: kourtneylibbie.blogspot.com); Aaron, our local nature, science, and fantasy novel enthusiast, gladly walks out the backdoor to a welcoming second-grade class every morning; Elliot, a spunky, buoyant leader and Phineas and Ferb devotee, skips down the road to the neighborhood church's pre-kindergarten class three times a week; Libbie tags along, merrily singing and drawing, except when noting her confusion as to why only the boys get to go to school--a world-view we are eager to correct soon. We loved summering at the Lamberts; hosting Tucker, a loved cousin, in our home for a month; and sharing Thanksgiving with the Peterses. In the local LDS congregation, Ben coordinates member missionary activities for the ward, Kourtney teaches four year olds in the Primary, and the kids are loved by their respective teachers. We have yet to figure out what is so big about Oklahoma football.

We are, theories notwithstanding, inexplicably well.

Tulsa is charming. Come visit. Seriously. Route 66 and I-44 meet here. Stay for movie night. The guest room is yours. 

Oh, and we are pregnant with our fourth child. Look for baby in late July. Thrilled!

Yep. You read that right. 

Love and season greetings,

Ben, Kourtney, Aaron, Elliot, Libbie, and (?) Tarzan Midge

Halloween 2011

Sometimes Halloween is very minimal for us, or even non-existent (like last year in Jerusalem when it passed by with us hardly noticing). This year, we got into it more than usual and had fun. Maybe it's the new lifestyle with a house, car, and income, but it was just easier this year than it has been in the past. The kids had their costumes planned and picked out weeks in advance, I purchased the pattern and fabrics for Aaron's homemade costume weeks in advance and even finished sewing it well before the final hour. We are still mesmorized by the ease of normal life I guess. Being able to drive to Hobby Lobby, pick out a pattern and fabric, then sew in my own bedroom is pretty amazing stuff. I haven't sewn in years so I had a lot of fun making Aaron's costume. A finished product (that doesn't get eaten/destroyed immediately) is rare in my life lately so it's pretty exciting to produce one.

As with any holiday, we spent a good week pre-Halloween doing Halloweeny things. The weekend before we went to our church party. Ben and I threw our costumes on three minutes before walking ou the door. We hadn't really planned on anything but I was cold so I put my footsies on and Ben got inspired at the last minute so he printed out a sign that said, "Budget Invisible Man Costume" and we sloppily taped it on to his tan shirt.

Ward Party costumes: lazy snuggly woman, budget invisible man, Batman Fairy Princess, Robin Hood, and a knight

One night we decorated cookies at a friend's house, and as usual Aaron rocked the design aspect of decorating. 

Aaron's final products

As delicious as they were pretty

Then of course Elliot and Libbie always love to put costumes on and run around. Here they are in costumes that are not their Halloween costumes.

Libbie the Knight and Batman

Love this

And now we get to the meat of the matter. The actual evening of Halloween. It was pretty exciting for us to do some classic trick-or-treating for the first time. It was just like I remember it from my childhood: running from house to house getting free candy. Although this time there was a lot more thank-you prompting and searching through crowds of kids to find my own.

Here is the Robin Hood costume I made. He was pretty excited about it. Definitely the most excited he's ever been for a costume. Robin Hood is just adult enough that it appeals to Aaron but it is still very recognizable. He already had a bow and arrows so all I had to do was sew the rest.

Robin Hood

Aaron was invited last minute to join some school friends from the neighborhood in the candy-begging frenzy.

Aaron and friends preparing for the feast

Partially costumed kids, after a long night of trick-or-treating

Elliot and Libbie more fully costumed

Batman Fairy Princess

Libbie is obsessed with this image. Whenever she has control of my phone, she finds it and stares at it. There's a video that goes with it, which she watches over and over again, reciting the lines.

Happy Birthday, Elliot!

Our Elliot turned five last week (on the 21st). It seems like we have been calling him "almost five" since a month after he turned four so it's about time he actually turned five! He's still in the 90th percentile for weight and 98th for height. He loves to play with his little sister and loves to read. He'll read almost anything he is interested in now, sometimes even trying to work through big chapter books. He loves his Pre-K class, the Hummingbirds. (I don't think I ever officially posted that we took him out of kindergarten after a week or two because we found an amazing Pre-K in our neighborhood that is only three days a week and not as long of a day. He was doing just fine in kindergarten, but we didn't want to push him into the system so early (he'd be almost two years younger than some of his classmates) and found this great school. His class of eight kids somehow ended up all boys this year, which is kind of fun for him.We feel really great about our decision.) We love having Tuesdays and Thursdays to play at home or go on outings. 

He revels in accuracy and thoroughness, and aims for perfection: closing every door he passes through, spelling words correctly, reading every sign that crosses his path, reciting rules and guidelines he is familiar with (at stop lights he recites, "Green means go, red means stop, and yellow means finish crossing"), giving the last kiss, waving the last goodbye, insisting on pronouncing every syllable he knows is there, which sometimes means exploding the ending consonants like in "goo-duh ni-ghT" and, my personal favorite, frequently naming his list of "not nice words," which usually consists of "stupid, hey you dummy, it's your fault, told ya, and hate." Most of these are words he found in books or heard from friends. He is very good at being careful what words he uses and does avoid the things on his list, except, of course, when he is reciting the list. Hopefully this listing habit will stop before he learns any real doosies. 


Elliot's unbounded enthusiasm and ear-to-ear smile keeps us all smiling. The raw joy and unadulterated passion he finds in life are contagious. He keeps track of exciting upcoming events through numerous countdowns going on in his head simultaneously: how many sleeps until my birthday, until his birthday, until his friend's party, until he gets to take the school weekend pony home, etc. He loves to keep track of things in general--the day of the week, the date, the helper of the day, his weekly chores, his chore/behavior points (which he counts in his head instead of on paper), who is where and doing what, etc. He loves it when you pretend you don't know something he does, but he doesn't appreciate it when you tell him something he already knows (which is a politeness issue we are working on...). He is constantly trying to figure things out and sum them up. He'll come up with statements like, "I'm never gonna die when I'm four years old," to satiate his need to make general statements but maintain accuracy. He still loves puzzles. He loves to listen to music, often carefully singing along to his favorites. He likes to listen to songs over and over until he has them memorized. He would crush his dad in a lyric recitation contest any day (and regularly does). He likes the Baby Beluga Raffi c.d., especially "Day-O." He still loves Peter and the Wolf. He also seems to enjoy Bach and Rachmaninov, shouting out the instruments he recognizes. One of his favorite songs to listen to is "The Kids' Song" by Moxy Fruvous, which he will listen to over and over, singing along and laughing out loud, sometimes rewinding because he missed some lyrics because he was laughing too hard (I can't tell you how happy this makes me... such a good song/album/band. My sixteen-year-old self is smiling big at those moments). He loves to be silly, especially when it's allowed.

Elliot is our little bear cub, almost too big to hold but still snuggly. He likes to find funny snuggling positions, like "nose to eye," which means I rest my nose in his eye socket and we laugh about it for a few minutes. He loves to build and create with his big brother and to help his little sister, sometimes calling her sweetheart or darling. We love our Elliot and are so glad he joined our family five years ago.

Interview with Elliot, October 17, 2011 

(My questions in red, his answers in black.)

What's your full name? 

Elliot James. And then Lambert. And then Peters.

How old are you? 

Right now? I think you know. Four and eleven months.

What's your favorite thing to do? 

How about animals? I like a zebra, alligator, crocodile, elephant. Can I write it now? Also flamingo, jaguar, cheetah, leopard.

What games do you like to play?

Hockey, golf, tennis [Note: He has never played any of these games. But he does love board games and sports.]

What food do you like to eat?

Sausage and hot dog, cake, ice cream, an elephant, haha. Why did you write haha? (Because you laughed.)

What do you want to be when you grow up?

A policeman and doctor and a lying man *Lies down on the ground* Spiderman, Batman, Superman, a tug-o-saurus. 

What's a tug-o-saurus?

Just write it down.

Who do you want to be like when you grow up?

Not a mermaid. Those are for girls. Hahaha. Make sure you write that I'm laughing. Pirate. And a race car driver. Did you get everything right? Let me check. *Reads through all questions and answers.* Yeap.

When Tato goes to work, what does he do?

He goes like this, *types imaginary keyboard* "I want to eat ice cream."

What is one of your favorite books?

Like tracing and copying and coloring? "Who Wants a cheap rhinocerous?"

What is a book you really like to read?

"The First Day of Winter," "Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs, "Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom"

Pumpkin patch

I recognize how cliche it is to post a picture of your kids with pumpkins in October but we went to a pumpkin patch and they all just sat there and smiled at me, asking me to take a picture. So here you go. My kids in a pumpkin patch.

I took and posted this with my phone. We'll see how well it works.

We are a happy family

As performed by Miss Libbie.

An Ode on Kourtney's Birthday

(Ben writing) Hey Everybody, We're building on a theme here.... (see previous posts)

IT IS KOURTNEY'S BIRTHDAY: OCTOBER 16th!!!!!!!!!!!

An Unripe (Horatian-esque?) Ode to Kourtney

O Kourtney, that lovely seventeen-year old girl who wore the same bright orange pants and striped shirts to freshman English class, and who never stopped making incisive comments. Now, more than a dozen years later, lovelier and sharper than ever! (Orange pants optional... )

O Kourtney, that bustling bundle of stunning skills--solo changer of car batteries, multi-directional chef, seamless seamstress, triumphant triathlete, multilingual editor, impassioned writer, irrepressible reader, and infectious laugher--who remains, throughout it all, charmingly and stubbornly unconvinced by her growing fan club.

O Kourtney, that effortless Tulsan sustained by her dedication to 30 Rock, and all other things addictively hilarious and wretched about New York City.

O Kourtney, that incandescent spouse of one lucky duck, mother of three swans, math teacher of dozens, friend to hundreds, quiet exemplar-oracle to untold numbers!

O Kourtney, that gracious champion of the chessboard, unvanquished dominator of that brain-bending card game, Set.

O Kourtney, owner of that perfect smile, especially when its broadens into a mischievous, crooked grin.

O Kourtney, that paragon of self-discipline who, a few weeks after discovering her childhood optical convergence insufficiency, is already well on her way to licking it!

O Kourtney, world traveler extraordinaire with an unfailing local compass.

O Kourtney, that singular super-mega-hot babe!

O Kourtney, my solnishko....

Odes fail in the face of your unspeakable awesomeness...

Oh Kourtney, Happy Birthday!

Elliot has become a little obsessive when it comes to keeping things how he thinks they should be. He can't walk into a room without closing the door behind him, just as he can't sit in the kitchen without all the cupboards closed. Even when I am in the middle of unloading the dishwasher and I step away to put something away, I usually come back to find the dishwasher door closed. Yesterday he opened the sliding door so that he could close the screen door behind it since the screen door was only half closed. He's very thorough. 

He is no less thorough with his thank-yous. If you give him something, or do something for him, he will say thank you, and keep repeating it until you say "you're welcome." I was so pleased the other day when he was eating his breakfast and said, "Thank you mom." Elliot is so thorough that sometimes it's hard to keep track of what he is being grateful for at that moment so I responded, "For what?" He said, "For giving me life." I was so pleased that he realized we had chosen to give him life and that he was grateful for it. What a profound four-year-old.

It took me about ten minutes to realize he was talking about the cereal Life.

Ben's birthday party

A couple of weeks after Mom's birthday, we celebrated Ben's birthday at my parents' house. We actually did this last year also so naturally, this year we invited the same people and all had a good time again.

Aaron had been planning Ben's party for several months, so naturally we had Aaron's favorite meal-- ribs and corn on the cob. They were somehow cooked just perfectly and were just incredible. As usual, there was way too much delicious food.

Ben's grandma Carolyn, our friend Andy, Ben and Jacob chatting at one end of the table

The other end of the table: Aunt Tiffany, my grandma, my "Aunt" Bonnie (who, I figured out when I was in high school, is not actually related to us), my mom, and uncle Tim

My dad treated us with a performance on his new alp horn, complete with Swiss garb and all.

My awesome dad

Of course no Swiss performance would be complete without some yodeling action.

Grandma Carolyn is quite the yodeler

Libbie loved to do the alp horn. She actually wasn't bad.

She also liked to stick her head in the other end while others tried it out

Mom's Birthday Party

We were able to make it to Utah in time to celebrate my mom's birthday with the crew. She had a little party on BYU campus during her lunch break. The kids all got sunglasses, rubber duckies to float in the river, and bubbles.

Tucker (Kendra's boy) playing in the river

Elliot loved his glasses

Swinging Elliot, holding Libbie and Tucker

I love the above picture because it's awesome, but also because it reminds me of all the times Ben and I have walked that path together before. As fun as it was then, life has improved since those days back in 1998 when little seventeen and eighteen year old Ben and I would walk close together (but not holding hands; too much of a statement) from the library to class, or between the library and the food court, or the library and our homes. Those were incredibly happy moments, but these, skipping along with children and nephews/nieces in tow, are even better.

Eve and Libbie blowing bubbles

The one, two, and three year old girls enjoying lunch

I really wanted to include a picture of my mom at her party but somehow she escaped our lens that day. I'll be sure to get one of her in the next post.

Summertime hanging out

I know this was a long time ago and we are now living a different life as a settled family in Oklahoma, but I am going to finish off and finally post these summer posts of our freelancing summertime in Utah.

My sister and her husband have a new house with a theater room where we had fun watching movies together.

Watching a movie at Aunt Krista's ("Tissy") house with cousins and Aunt Kelcie

A different night, watching and eating with Grandpa
My dad has the remarkable ability to remain focused on the screen regardless of the chaos and child-piling happening around him
(the kids are using sippy cups to avoid spilling; it seemed like a good idea but looks pretty silly)

Although we didn't take any long car trips like we did last summer, we did spend quite a bit of time in the car.                

Addie, Elliot, and Evie knocked out
The car behind is my dad's with the rest of our crew... we no longer fit in one car

We didn't get a picture of all the grandkids that were in Utah together but we did manage to get one after Kendra left with Tucker.

The girls: Evie, Libbie, Addie, and Penelope

Now with their brothers

And now with their mamas

And of course we spent a lot of time at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

All the kids love Kelcie's dog Dexter

And while we made many more messes there than we care to admit, we did spend some time cleaning as well...

Summertime--first day in Utah

Now that summer is over and we are done with our first week of school, I'm ready to do a few posts about our summer fun. 

My sisters Kami and Kendra overlapped their summer visits to Utah with ours so we could all be together. It was so fun to see them and their kids.

Back in early June, after four long airplane rides (longest was twelve hours) that went incredibly smoothly, we met my parents at the airport. Then, of course, our first stop was at the Red Iguana to get some long-awaited Mexican food. (No offense to the Middle East, but the Mexican food there is quite lacking.)

Reunion between Libbie and Grandpa at the airport
(I think it's funny that the lady in the back ducked to avoid being in the picture even though she is behind the subjects)

Meeting Little "Pea" (Penelope, Kami's baby, who was born while we were in Jerusalem)

My sister Kendra with our nieces Evie and Addie (Krista's girls)

So much delicious food

Aunt Bonis with her baby Pea and Aaron and Gabe

                              

First Day of School

The boys woke up at 6:30, rearing to go. It was early enough that we got to sit on the couch and watch the sun rise over their school. It was a nice way to start the new school year. Hopefully the obvious metaphor will match the beauty of the actual occurrence.

Here they are in all their uniformed glory. I think their uniforms are great. Aaron put his on this morning and said, "I love it!" It's great to know that your kids will look nice and not have to worry about what they are wearing. It does make it difficult to locate them on the playground though.

Aaron and Elliot ready for their first day of school

Libbie getting in on the action

Elliot getting to work in his Kindergarten class

They both refused to say whether they liked their first day of school or not (as is typical for some reason). Aaron said it was frustrating because they didn't get to do fun stuff like reading and art because it was so chaotic. He was also really disappointed that his friend from church who is in third grade at the same school didn't meet him at the entrance to the school at 3:00 like they had planned.

Elliot told us some of the rules and recited Humpty Dumpty, so I guess he was paying attention.

First Day of School Jitters

Tomorrow our boys start school. Aaron will start second grade and Elliot will start kindergarten. (Elliot's grade is on a semi-experimental basis... his age group here is Pre-K but because of the fact that he did kindergarten last year in Jerusalem, there was no space in Pre-K here, and he is reading well, we were given permission to start him in kindergarten early. We'll see how it goes.)

Aaron explained to me the other night that he is excited about school but a little nervous too. I said that was understandable and asked him what he was the most nervous about. He explained, "I am worried that my teacher will make me read things I don't want to and that it will make me not like reading. What if she says things like, 'Read that right now or else I will call your mom!' and then I would not like reading as much and..." he broke down in tears and then continued, "and I can't lose reading. I just can't." I hugged him tight and told him that I bet his teacher will love reading too, and will try hard to encourage him in his love of reading and try not to do anything that would harm that. I told him that I imagine she might even be able to recommend new books to him that he's never read and will love. (This suddenly perked him up as he exclaimed, "Like what?!") I told him that if his teacher ever says threatening things to him that lead him toward not liking reading as much, we would talk about it together and work it out so she didn't hurt his love for reading. He seemed convinced and fell asleep shortly after. What a kid.

Elliot says he thinks he is excited for school. He has never been to an English-speaking school before so I think he will be pleasantly surprised. He has really taken off with reading these last two weeks. He loves to sit and read to Libbie, and she loves to listen and repeat after him. "What that say?" she usually says about every page, and Elliot patiently reads the lines to her word by word, so she can repeat after and "read" too. I think he is ready for kindergarten, but I am nervous to have him "leaving the nest" so soon. I was really looking forward to special time with him during the day; these last couple of weeks have been heavenly for all of us as we have time and space to hang out as well as easily get out and explore new things. We'll see how he does these first couple of weeks in kindergarten. If he doesn't love it, we'll explore other options. He needs something structured and consistent that provides friends and makes him happy; we'll see if kindergarten provides that. It is supposedly a wonderful school so  hopefully it will live up to its reputation and test scores. We'll see how it goes.

Settling In

I am sitting on a large, cozy, fully reclining couch chair looking out floor-to-ceiling windows into our backyard. Yes, that’s right—our backyard, in our house, on our furniture. It’s hard to believe. Ben and I have spent the last week moving into the home we bought last week. We have been insanely busy getting things done, but have still found plenty of time to pause, smooch, raise our eyebrows, smile, and comment about how amazing this all is. We have had countless moments of “Wow, this is so cool… I can’t believe it…” Even as I type, Ben is setting up surround sound in our main living area (“the library”) with speakers he has had in storage for over twelve years. He is smiling from ear to ear right now, giggling as KMFDM streams through the speakers, saying, “Tell me that doesn’t sound good!” So cute.

When Aaron was one year old, we moved our family to a small town in western Ukraine called Lvov to study Ukrainian for a summer. Aaron learned to understand Russian and Ukrainian at a one-year-old level. We became comfortable with the language and culture. That was pretty amazing. One summer we lived in Berlin, Germany for several weeks then traveled through western Europe, one time taking an overnight train where we had only two skinny beds, one on top of another. Ben had to lie on the top bunk the whole night holding Aaron in one arm and, with the other arm, holding onto the upper rail for dear life. That was definitely one of those moments in life where you think, “This is a pretty unique experience.” We lived in Manhattan for five years, with family outings to see the Statue of Liberty or walk the Brooklyn Bridge. That was quite an incredible experience. Last year we moved our family to Jerusalem to live for an academic year. We studied Hebrew, shopped in the outdoor markets, traveled throughout Israel and Palestine, and became resident experts on how to thrive in Jerusalem as non-Jewish Americans with little money and no car. That was pretty fantastic. Yet, somehow, sitting here in our reclined second-hand sofa looking out our windows into the darkness is the most unexpectedly amazing experience of them all. We did not realize this would be part of our lives, yet here it is.

Each moment of putting our home together has been so fun. The first piece of furniture we bought at a consignment shop and brought in. The first box of books we opened. The first bookshelf we put together and filled up with dusty old books that have spent most of their lives in boxes. The first stream of music to flow through the home. Today Ben unpacked the kids’ books and put them on a huge bookshelf in their room. All five of us sat there smiling for at least ten minutes, pointing out books we were excited to see again. It’s so beautiful to see our things together and accessible. Pretty incredible.

Ben and I feel like we just won the grand prize on a game show—new appliances, furniture, minivan, and a house(/loan) to go along with it all. We just can’t believe it. We laughed at ourselves last night when we realized our pillowtalk had morphed into swapping stories about amazing feats of fitting things into the minivan. We put a whole couch in there, with room for groceries on the side!

Today I realized we have a closet I forgot about. A whole closet! These are the moments where I just shake my head and wonder how we got so lucky. Today Libbie said, “Me have a ‘play outside’ in my home!” In other words, “We have a playground in our backyard!” Technically it’s not really in our backyard but in the schoolyard behind us but we can use it whenever we want and it is accessible from the backyard, so it’s basically the same thing. Less maintenance.

Ben is now reading Borges next to me. We have been waiting for this moment for many years, mostly not even realizing that we were looking forward to it. We could have been happy to stay in Manhattan forever in a small apartment, wheeling groceries home in a broken down granny cart. But instead we have a house and a minivan in the southern Midwest city of Tulsa, Oklahoma. And it’s pretty awesome.

In front of our (currently pink) house