Family Letter

My sister posts her family letters to her blog (slightly edited for embarassing content!), I think its a great idea. Hope it doesn't bore you to death!

We are a little bit behind on the family water-cooler chat because we have officially killed our TV—bad timing a week before the Olympics, I know. I just have a terrible time wanting to pay $50 per month for TV when things are so tight in other areas. We’ve watched a few of the clips that they show online, but it’s not quite the same thing. The boys, of course, want to see the clips about all the crashes that happen each day. Being little boys, and having never really hurt themselves, they think it’s hilarious.


I’ve been outside doing some yard work this last week. We’re trying to get our veggie garden ready for planting. I should say our tomato and zucchini garden, with a few patches of herbs since this is all we have had any success growing here. So, I am going to plant a whole herd of tomato plants and hope to have a decent harvest this year.

The kids are looking forward to having Grandma Shelly come and stay with them for a week. The boys tell me that they will not miss me at all, which is perfect. I hope they don’t. I don’t think I will miss them for about 4 days, and then I’ll be ready to cut the trip short and come home. Josh is taking me on a cruise for a week. We had wanted to go somewhere for our 10th anniversary, but we had a little Jilly that gummed up the plans. Now that she’s older (and potty trained!) we are going to leave her. So, we’re going off to celebrate our 11th anniversary and to get away from the telephone.

Jilly comes up with new words every day, she’s virtually a non-stop talker these days. Some of her words: “rasboadies” (raspberries), “yalka-yips” (chocolate chips), “beeto” (burrito), Didney an Cami (Sydney and Cami), and her very best “bye-bye Dada” (no translation needed). I think it’s a mark of the Felt in her that most of her words have to do with food. She also has a new song each week. Last week was "Zippity Do-Dah" and this week has been “I Am a Child of God."

Alex is working hard to learn his multiplication facts. He has a wonderful teacher who is very understanding of little boys and their foibles. She really likes Alex, which is helpful. His class is putting on a short play of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and she’s asked Alex to play the part of Willie Wonka. I think it may have something to do with the fact that he’s the tallest child in the class and that he loves to talk to adults. His teacher tells me that about once a week he’ll come sit by her and recess and say, “Hey Mrs. Fatka, how’s life?” or “How are your kids doing Mrs. Fatka?”

Ryan is loving his Preschool. His teacher loves to tell me the things that Ryan says to the other kids. I guess he functions as the Preschool reality checker. One of the kids was saying that the strawberry marshmallows they were eating had strawberry blood inside them. Ryan looked over and rolled his eyes and said something to the effect of, “Actually, the marshmallow is not alive and so it can’t have blood.” His two favorite words are “actually” and “technically.” He keeps his teachers amused because he’s kind of like a miniature adult. He’s very serious and very much based in reality. He’s always asking me if things are “real” or “actual.” I think he’s a lot like his Dad in that regard.

I am still terribly concerned about my little brother Alan. We haven't heard a word from him since early December. I’ve been praying and fasting that somehow we will know that he’s alive and that he’s OK. We were driving along in the car and the boys were wondering what one of the names in Kung Fu Panda meant. Ryan said we should call Uncle Alan because he knows Chinese. Whereupon Alex replied, “We can’t Ryan, Uncle Alan ran away.” I cried the rest of the way home. I sure wish he’d let somebody know that he’s ok. Until then, I will keep asking the Lord to look after him.

Love to you All,
Cheryl

Believe it or not, I am posting today and not waiting for another six months to pass before updating my blog! We made a momentous decision this week and decided not to re-up our cable contract. I've always thought paying for TV was lame, but this week we decided that we have much better things to do with $50.00 every month. I am looking forward to doing more useful things with my time. Things like yoga, reading, jogging, knitting, playing strip poker and blogging. I never realized how much time I was wasting in front of the TV. It's just so easy to crash on the sofa after getting the kids down. Now, I don't have a reason to go sit there anymore. I don't imagine that it's going to be too much of an adjustment, considering that I grew up without at TV. My friends used to call me "raised by wolves." I guess since the wolves didn't to too bad a job on me, they can come and raise my kids, too.

On Presidents' Day we were thrilled to have a whole day with our Daddy home. That's been a rarity lately. We decided to go for a hike in the "mountains" just South of our house. It's not quite spring out here, so the desert doesn't look as good now as it will in a couple of weeks. You can see from the pictures that it's just starting to turn green. In a few weeks, it will be really beautiful for a couple of days (and then it will get hot and the landscape will get fried and resume it's usual hellish appearance). Alex and Ryan were troopers and made it all the way to the top of the Goldmine mountain trail. Alex, as usual, beat me there!

Alex came home with an essay that he had written in school that I wanted to record here.

What Makes Me Special

by Alex Felt

I am special because I mow lawns really well. I am super at the Wii. My cursive is awsome. I swim fast. I read as fast as lightning. I wash cars. I am a great scout. I got the Bobcat badge. I play chase with my sister. All of these things make me special.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is real and simple truth.

Happy Valentine's Day

I've been too busy cleaning up barf to do much blogging. It's been an absolute siege around here. Someone is sick every time I turn around. And we've been potty training Jill, and teaching Alex times tables, and teaching Ry how to read.... Anyway, today I saw one of the greatest sights of my life. Josh arrived home from work with flowers for me for Valentine's Day, but also with a bouquet of red tulips for his baby daughter. She took the flowers, giggled the most spontaneous and infectious giggle, and said, "Sank you, Da da!" She didn't even want to let me take them to put them in a vase for her. Take it from an old Daddy's girl, this is the beginning of a life long love affair...