Happy Holidays 2013

Hello to all our family and friends! We hope this letter finds you happy and healthy and looking forward to the next year. The Chapman family had another jammed pack year with work and school and travel and fun. As per usual, I will summarize how this year treated each of us and then let our website fill in the details on anything else that interests you. And I highly recommend a website for all of you out there. There are few things that give us more joy than going back and reading and re-reading all the little events in our life. For example, last year’s letter was written in the beginning of December so I wasn’t able to share all that happened the rest of the month...but if you click here, you can read about how memorable the month was.

Onto the year end wrap-ups!

Princess Molly E. Chapman (3): As stunning as it might be to believe, Molly is getting only more beautiful every day. I am amazed how often random people stop us to point out how pretty she is. Couple that with her sparkling personality and her love to perform for a crowd she lives (and belongs) for the spotlight. But of course, there is much more to Molly than to what everyone else sees. Mommy and Daddy get to enjoy the real Molly on a daily basis. She continues to challenge us, but in a good way (and I can say that now cause I am suppose to stay positive and the meds are working). She always gets what she wants. By either sheer stubbornness or by shameless manipulation of her Dad. She is loud, opinionated and brilliant. Not a single one of those qualities does an easy child make. But of course I wouldn’t really want it another way. This year Molly started off the year by getting totally out of diapers WOO HOO! She was barely 2 1/2 and she was done (nearly half the time it took her big brother...shhhh). She also moved out of her crib (here) which was awfully hard on Mommy and Daddy. We had hoped a new bed would give her the independence and pride to stay the %^#$ in bed at a night. Uhm no. To this very day, Molly is still a terrible sleeper and often wanders the halls late a night (or goes all Category 5 on her room). We think Molly’s sleeping habits are linked heavily to some of her minor health issues, which was another big event of the year. Per Mommy’s new year’s resolution of getting Molly off of her medications we decided to head down the long path of figuring what was wrong with this little girl’s tummy. You can read all about it (here), but right now I still am not sure we figured much out other than eliminated a lot of things and Molly’s on more medications now than when we started out the year. Molly wakes up often, I think partially, due to her dreams. It might just be she doesn’t need that much sleep and her mind is as active at night as it is during the day. Other big news for the princess was she started pre-school (we have school aged kids now...yikes). This did not go like I thought it would (see here). Seeing how polar opposite Caden and Molly are on many things, and remembering how hard Caden’s first day of pre-school was (here), we had just assumed that Molly would take to it. And for the most part she did, but as the days have gone on, she doesn’t seem so sure about it. And worse, we are now receiving end of “bad news” from the teachers about her behavior (okay so that was expected). BUT all of this still adds up to one wonderful little girl. She loves to snuggle, she tells her Mommy and mostly her Daddy that she loves them. She can be very sweet to her brother (CAN be). We love being around her and she keeps us young and on-guard. Oh yea, and she is all things Disney Princess...yea, we are still in that phase.

Master Caden Chapman (6): I am not sure when it happens that a little boy becomes a big boy or how you are even supposed to know, but if I measure his growth against all that he can do, I assume he is all grown-up. Caden is a bright and happy boy with a very active imagination and an unavoidable love for all things involving weapons. He has a great sense of humor and a contagious laugh. It has been a growing time for Mom and Dad too learning how to always play with him and let him be a kid and at the same time, raise a good and respectful young man. We haven’t figured that out yet, he pushes us a lot and is often willful and flat out ignores us. That in turns causes us to discipline him too much which starts taking all the kid out of him. But at the end of the day, he is kind and courteous to any and everyone... else. He is sociable, outgoing, caring and has a heart of gold for even those he has not met. This year his cousin Anna went through a double lung transplant and Caden raised money for her (see here). He also insists that we go to the Community Food Share warehouse every Tuesday to volunteer and is always looking for a chance to help those in need. Caden finished Pre-School this year (here) and started Kindergarten (here). And unlike his first day of Pre-School alluded to above, Kindergarten did not phase him even a little. Mommy and Daddy were terrified, he walked in like he owned the place and walked out knowing he owned it. We are all adjusting to Caden going to school everyday now (even if it is only for half a day). It is pretty exhausting on him and he is still swimming and taking Spanish lessons. But he loves it. He enjoys Library and PE days, loves getting noticed at school for his accomplishments and doesn’t mind sharing all of the details of his day with us which we all enjoy. He is very active outside the house too. Loves biking and climbing, will do any activity you present to him and can go through a ream of paper, two rolls of tape, and a round of staples in one project. A couple of milestones for him; he lost his first tooth followed shortly by his second. He is also sporting a pair of glasses after complaining about not being able to see in class (here). That was worrisome for a bit. We were concerned he would feel different and might get teased. Nope, only concern is how he treats those $300 glasses (grrrr). Caden is a high energy kid and we are all working to be the high energy people we need to be for his and our benefit. We are squarely in the super-hero phase now so we are looking forward to another year of needing nothing short of super-human powers to keep up!

The parents (35, but looking not a day over 25): Of course our year has been kid centric so everything said above pretty much covers what we have been up to...but not entirely. Katy has continued to grow her Arbonne business. She is at the point where she doesn’t have to work and it still generates an income for us, but of course she will never be happy not pushing it to succeed even more. Her job #1 is still being the best mom that any kid could hope for. It is no easy task raising these kids, but she does so gracefully and wouldn’t trade it for anything. And last but not yet forgotten, me dad. It has been a good year on the job for Jon. He is still working at LGS and recently was promoted to Tech Manager. Who knew after being an engineer forever that management would be so appealing. Jon also got to run the Tough Mudder (here) this year further trying to prove to himself that he is not getting older. Both Mom and Dad are hoping to do the Tough Mudder together this year.

As a family and house-hold, we again had a year full of travels and other events. Trips this year included short mountain get-aways (here), Colorado road trips (here and here), visits to family (here) and of course, the epic Disney trip this year (all over here). Our house enjoyed some much needed updates with a new paint job and garage door (here) with hopes of maybe much bigger changes next year. And of course there was a nationally recognized flood this September that came very close to home (here), but fortunately for us, not in our home.

Another year is about in the books, our kids are another year older, we are another year wiser (I hope). As much as we can’t stand how fast time passes us by, we look forward to the next year and what our kids have to teach us. We also hope that the next year brings you prosperity, health and happiness. Keep us up to date with your lives and we will continue to do the same

Love,

Jon, Katy, Caden and Molly Chapman