Merry Christmas: The official Card

On the back of our card I wrote a little bio for everyone in the family: enjoy!

Gabe has been living the dream since retiring from Layton this fall and becoming a professional meat smoker. In his spare time he has also started up his own General Contracting business known as Beal Corporation. He spends his days "bidding work" and watching survival documentaries on Netflix. His loved ones fear we may soon be taking up residence in a van by the river. But Gabe ever the optimist maintains he has "everything under control". In other important news Gabe no longer cries out in fear when our cat enters the room and can even occasionally be caught petting her. 

Christy has recently started working for Cents of Style as a fashion blogger, which she considers a reward for surviving 7 years of marriage as well as a summer spent within the confines of her husbands beloved camper. She spends her days "working" by playing dress up with shoes, makeup, scarves, and necklaces. The children are now expected to parent themselves and the house is no longer being cleaned, which is both liberating and disgusting. In her spare time she can be found exercising at the "Barre" which she adamantly argues is a legitimate workout facility. But we have our suspicions. 

Brigitte is doing her best to make it through the first grade this year, despite the fact that it requires her to wear underwear AND socks on a daily basis, as well as interacting with a variety of people whom she is terrified of. She continues to excel at collecting and organizing garbage into art, as well as constructing HUGE piles of half worn clothing in her bedroom. She has made it through an entire 5 weeks of ballet classes which is nothing short of a miracle for our shy little lady! She has also recently started taking Piano lessons, which is one of the things she loves the most during the week. Rumor has it she is the favorite child because so far she is the only one that can or will wipe herself. She is full of energy and emotion and we love her sweetness so much!

Spencer is our fashionable sweetheart who loves his skinny jeans almost as much as attending preschool this year. He spends his days rasseling the dog while wearing his bike helmet and backpack full of weapons. He spends hours a day building Lego contraptions which WE then spend all day stepping on. He refuses to cut his hair and has morphed into a miniature John Denver, much to our dismay. He is always the first to volunteer to say a prayer anywhere we go, and and always says the same things: bless that we dont get
bleeding or big bloods, and help us to get to pops house in 3 of days. Spencer continues to quantify his feelings with inappropriate sums of numbers. Such as: I love you nineteen fifty. We couldn't love him more. 

Benett remains our ever challenging child full of hilarious antics and inexplicable rage issues. We did recently recieve an email from his nursery leader reporting that in an incident involving a hammer last SundayBennet chose to share with a little girl named Mary, instead of his usual bludgeoning to the face. We couldn't be more proud. Benett spends his days (and usually his nights too) obsessively watching Dora the explorer. He speaks more spanish than english now, but somehow is still able to effectively communicate his wants and needs through violence, his native tongue. He survives solely on Mac n Cheese and is very into frogs and ninjas - although weirdly NOT ninja turtles. We sure love our Bennycakes.

Merry Christmas to each of you! I am spending the week at my parent's cabin in Garden Valley, where the snow is deep and the internet connection slow...

I have brought no less than 48 diet cokes to make it through to Sunday. There are 17 adults and 13 children under the age of 11 celebrating together, some of which have lovingly brought a raging case of Hand Foot and Mouth disease with them. It will be the gift that keeps on giving this year. (Cant wait!)

xoxo

Christy