Christmas Letter

The past two years, Steve has written a letter to send out with our Christmas cards. I think that's a great tradition because I love getting letters from other people, and Steve is pretty good about making the letters funny and interesting. This year he wrote another one, but I think he went a little overboard with the "trying to be funny" part. I'm not sure if I'm being too sensitive, but I'm not comfortable sending out the letter he wrote, so this year our cards will be letter-less. He poked fun at me for not going in our backyard for the last five months due to my fear of snakes, but failed to mention that our yard is completely overrun with snakes! It's not just some crazy baseless phobia. He also mentioned that I have "cast off certain societal norms, such as bathing, dusting, and mopping". The last sentence of my paragraph said, "All kidding aside, four things can be said about Sarah: she is a great wife, a loving mother, a talented knitter, and a horrible housekeeper." I realize he is being sarcastic, and I don't care if we joke about these things together, but I can imagine people who don't know me that well reading it and thinking, "Wow. This chick doesn't bathe, has a filthy house, and is afraid to go outside. She sounds like a real winner." So no letter this year. And if there is to be one in the future I will have to write it myself, because I doubt Steve is going to waste his time writing one again that won't get sent out.

Steve has been working up in St. Joseph a lot lately, which is about 1.5 hours away. Last night he just decided to stay there instead of driving back late, so Emma and I drove up there to spend the night with him. She was very excited to be on a mini-vacation. He didn't get to the hotel until about 10:30, and by then I was ready to go to bed, but it was still a fun trip. Especially because I stopped at Gap Maternity on the way up there and bought myself a few Christmas presents!

Yesterday Emma was running down the hall, when she tripped and her poor little face slammed into the corner of the doorjamb. Now she has a large bruise that covers almost her entire sweet little cheek, and I'm a tad self-conscious about it when we are out. It looks like someone hit her, and I don't want anyone to be thinking that. Emma, by the way, has completely become the World's Most Polite Girl. Remember when, not that long ago, I was saying she was being really whiny and demanding? She transformed herself back into a sweet and wonderful kid, and is once again pleasant to be around. Whew!

Oh, and the big girl underwear thing? Not so successful. She pooped in her first pair, then peed in her second, and I was about to put on her third pair of the morning. I said, "Now remember to tell me when you have to go potty, because you don't want to have wet underwear, right?" She matter-of-factly said, "Yes, I do. I really, really like to have wet underwear." Oh. Well that may be, but I don't like cleaning it up, so back she went into the diapers.

I generally don't make New Year's reslutions, but this year I'm making one for our family. We are only going to eat out twice a week. Steve, of course, will still eat out when he's working, but only twice for me and Emma. This morning I was thinking about it and I realized that Saturday night we had dinner at Cinzetti's, Sunday we had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, yesterday Emma and I had lunch at Jason's Deli and dinner at Mimi's Cafe, and this morning (which really couldn't be helped because we were so far from home) we had breakfast at Houlihan's. Five times out in four days is pretty ridiculous, and it's not unusual for us, either. So, in an effort to stop wasting so much money, two times a week is the limit. Hopefully this will be more successful than most New Year's resolutions.