Countdown to Colorado - 3 more days!

Mat's stepbrother and his wife (Chad and Kami) just had their first baby in December. They have an unusual situation because they live in Macau, China and feel kind of isolated from their family and other new parents. Chad recently sent all of us siblings a list of questions about our family traditions and how we're raising our children. I guess he thought it would be a good way for us to share our experiences with each other since none of us live very close. Below are my responses to his questions. It was fun to think about all this. It made me feel like we actually do kind of have a plan...

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Wake up? We all like to sleep as late as possible. We usually get up between 8-9am and the day gets going around 10am. One of the (few) perks of owning your own business.

Feeding times? The usual.

How do you play? With Jackson at the age he is, we have to be careful about getting him riled up. When we're eating, getting dressed, naptime, going to bed, in public, etc, etc we have to be strict or else he will misbehave. We like to play a lot after work before dinner and on the weekends. When I'm home alone with the boys on Thurs and Fri I always try to take them somewhere to play or at least convince them that what we're doing is fun even if it's only fun for me! Like I usually let him get popcorn when we go to Target...

Favorite toys? Constantly changing. Jackson was obsessed with Star Wars for several months and turned every object into a blaster. Now he's into Peter Pan and every object is a sword. Rarely does he ever play with a toy in the way it was intended. Luke likes things that make noise (quack or moo, that sort of thing).

Favorite books? Jackson likes all books. He has always had a great attention span even for books and poetry that don't have illustrations. Mat read him an abridged version of Tom Sawyer (a chapter a night), and he has "The Children's Hour" by Longfellow memorized. But he also likes silly baby books and all the normal classics.

Favorite songs? Anything by Genesis of course. He also likes the Jackson Five, the White Stripes, Willie Nelson, the Go-Go's, and the Buggles and other eighties music. Finally we are going through a phase where we don't have to listen to only bad kid's music. (However, the whole family does still like "Bear Tunes for Kids" and to a lesser extent "Moose Tunes.")

Favorite TV show? Curious George.

Babysitters? Not often enough on the weekends - too expensive and hard to plan. But they do stay with our babysitter Kate on Mondays and Wednesdays every week.

Out on weekends? See above. It usually happens once every 4-6 weeks.

Mandatory vacations? Absolutely. We like to go somewhere for two or three weeks every summer. Then we always take a lot of time at the holidays. It's really great as a family to plan vacations, talk about them leading up to it, plan out our lives while we're gone, and then feel like you've got a new start when it's over. Jackson can't wait to be a Bennett Beaver next week at the day camp at the Y in Estes Park. He's not too sure about the pony ride, though. I'll let you know how it goes...

Other semi-traditions we have are to go out to our neighborhood ice cream store on Friday nights, to say prayers with the boys every night to give thanks for our blessings and ask God to take care of our friends and family, and for the boys to donate presents to other people in need on their birthdays.

For Christmas, we always want to be with family, but we're also trying to start some traditions at our house. This past year we had a "pancake supper" on Christmas Eve. Actually we had crepes and roasted potatoes, but Jackson only cared about the Sparkling Cider because we let him drink it from a champagne flute. He talked about it for days and days. Can't wait for Christmas this year. I'm sure we'll have a once in a lifetime experience with 8 grandkids, 3 and under, at Granddad and Gammo's house!