January 18, 2009
Ooooooooooooooohhh Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! In case you missed it, The Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl! Shelby and Brittney want everyone to know how cold it has been in Indiana. They have hit the negative 20’s this week. Shelby has actually missed school several days this week due to the low temperatures. We here in Arizona also have been dealing with the difficulties of cold weather. Just the other day, prior to getting dressed, Karl had to go outside to his car and get something. It was still very early in the morning before the sun was up. It was so cold that half way to the car he decided to turn back and put his flip flops on.
Karl and Vayden are getting comfortable with the 14 hour blocks they get to spend together. Vayden makes it easy to take of her. She is a happy go lucky infant who is easily entertained.Lori is feeling more and more comfortable with the idea of Karl taking care of Vayden despite Karl. Just the other day Lori called home while she was still at work and was surprised to learn that Karl and Vayden had gone on an outing to the grocery store. Lori asked how Vayden did. Karl responded by telling her, “Vayden did great, I don’t even think she cried.” Lori, taking the bait asked, “What do you mean you don’t think she cried?” Karl answered, “Well when I got back to the car, she seemed happy as could be.” Lori’s panicked response was, “Don’t even joke like that! You are kidding right?”
Very Vayden
Vayden has become a very vocal baby. She is trying out her voice with all kinds of weird sounds. She growls, she shrieks, she grunts, and she spits. She has also begun to develop a fear of strangers. People she doesn’t know will come up and poke their heads into her car seat to get a look at her and Vayden will get a big lower lip pout and start to cry. She also has a little dolly that she loves on now. It is more like she likes to eat the dolly, but it is still cute. Karl had to take her to her babysitter for the first time this week. It was only for two hours, but it was very hard to leave her. She is such a good baby and we are so happy to have her brighten our lives.
Completely Christian
A friend of ours who has various citrus trees brought over a bunch of oranges, lemons, tangelos, tangerines, grapefruits and some farm fresh eggs. Christian now eats these for breakfast everyday and is convinced it is making him run faster. He bases this on the fact that as soon as he started having oranges and tangerines for breakfast, he can now beat one of the kids that used to be faster than him at school in a foot race.
Lori and Christian were sitting on the couch this week talking and Lori said something about being fat. Christian in an attempt to console her and make her feel better says the following, “Mom, you’re not fat, you just have a lot of blubber.” Needless to say, Lori did not find any comfort in Christian’s words of comfort. We got a call from Christian’s teacher this week to tell us just how great he is doing in school and how proud she is of some of the improvements he has made recently.
Sooooo Shelby
The Fashion Show
Shelby, Alyssa, Christian and Karl go to the new Walmart right by us, which happens to be the biggest Walmart in all of Arizona for you trivia fans. Karl has some things to look for and the girls ask if they can go off by themselves. Christian opts to go with them. When Karl catches up to the girls a little, he finds them by the dressing rooms. They have enlisted Christian to be their model for a fashion show. Karl sat down as the design team sends Christian out in outfit after outfit. The show came complete with Shelby and Alyssa’s wardrobe narratives description or each of the various accoutrements and even the prices. They had incorporated a lot of sale items. Their frugal ensembles were so good that Karl actually bought something like three of them.
All Alyssa
Sponges
When Alyssa was 4 years old, Karl worked in downtown Los Angeles for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. It was ‘take your daughter to work day’ and Karl took Alyssa with him for a day of adventures in downtown Los Angeles. Alyssa thought riding the dirty city bus with a bunch of weird people was better than an amusement park ride. At one point during the day, Karl was driving his truck with Alyssa riding shotgun. While stopped at a red light, an obviously intoxicated street person came up to Karl’s window, and told Karl he was hungry. The homeless man then asked Karl if he had any spare change. Karl said he was sorry, but he did not have any change. The light turned green and Karl drove away. He soon noticed that Alyssa was deeply troubled. She had a very disappointed frown on her face and was crying. Karl first thought that the man had scared her. When Karl asked what was wrong, Alyssa was very upset and spouted back, “Daddy you lied!” Karl was caught off guard and responded, “What?” Alyssa then thrust her little hand forward and pulled open the ashtray which was full of change. Alyssa continued to cry and scolded Karl with, “That man was hungry Daddy and you lied!” “Now you can’t be a lawyer anymore!” She was so disappointed that Karl’s eyes began to fill with tears also. Karl was confused about the last statement and asked, “Why is it that you think I can’t be a lawyer?”
Prior to that time Alyssa would typically visit on weekends. Over a year prior to that day, Karl had explained to Alyssa that he wouldn’t be able to see her for one particular weekend because he had to go to Arizona to swear in as a lawyer there. Alyssa wanted an explanation and asked what that meant. Trying to make the explanation as simple as possible, Karl explained that he had to go before a bunch of important judges, raise his hand and swear to help people and tell the truth. That explanation satisfied Alyssa at the time. Unbeknownst to Karl, Alyssa had put that statement in her permanent memory.
Back in the truck in downtown Los Angeles, Alyssa tearfully explained to her Dad that Karl had broken his promise to those judges and therefore could no longer be a lawyer. Karl’s reprimand was reminder that a child’s mind is a beautiful unfiltered sponge.
Being Brittney
Best Offer
While Brittney was going to Higley High, she received a very well decorated Easter basket from a boy. The basket asked her the prom. Brittney accepted the offer but ran into a quite dilemma in the next few days when a different boy asked her to the prom by putting up a huge banner on her the homerun fence of her softball field. The problem was that she wanted to go with the second boy more than the she wanted to go with the first. Ahh the difficulties of popularity. What occurred after that was reminiscent an episode of the Brady Bunch. Brittney managed to retract the first acceptance and accept the second offer with careful planning and stratagem. We can’t remember all the details, but her acceptance of the second offer involved the use of Swedish Fish candy.
Family Stories
Manny Ramirez
This past baseball season, Christian and Karl made Chase Stadium their second home. Christian and Karl attended all three home games during the critical series against the Dodgers. (We would like to take a commercial break from your regularly scheduled programming and give special thanks to a very awesome wife, a wonderful mother and a very pregnant Lori for allowing Christian and Karl to do this.) During one of the games, Christian and Karl had first row upper tier seats in left field. Many of the Diamondbacks fans around Christian had been heckling the Dodger’s ‘on loan’ left fielder, Manny Ramirez. For those of you not familiar with Manny Ramirez, he hails from the Dominican Republic and wears his hair in long dread locks which is uncommon in Major League Baseball. After seeing others heckle Manny through out the game, Christian picks a particularly quiet moment to suddenly stand up and yell at Manny at the top of his lungs, “Hey Chewbacca! . . . Shave your head!!” Everyone within earshot immediately burst into laughter and Christian was immensely proud of himself.
