A Smattering of Duehrings

So, Christmas is over. Amen. God bless Christmas, but man, it has become a lot of work! What happened to the days of excited anticipation? Of getting handed your breakfast, and having your empty plate taken away? Of getting tons of cool toys? Of the torn wrapping paper and discarded boxes magically disappearing? Of jumping in the back seat to go to Gramma’s house? Ah, to be a kid again…

We had 4 Christmas’s this year: one with my Ma and “Grampa Kurt,” one with (Uncle) Jeremy, one with (Uncle) Travis and (Aunt) Dawn, and one with all of June’s family. Wow! Good times. The kids all thought it was super-cool, of course. I’m sure Eli is thinking that he gets to open presents every weekend now.

One word of gift-wisdom from this year: If you want your boys to actually sleep at night, don’t give them flashlights “like Daddy’s.” And don’t think you can hide them when bedtime rolls around–there is no place the eyes of a child can’t peek, no place little fingers can’t reach.

This morning June called me, needing to speak to an adult–to any adult. My boys are true-blooded boys, and nearly send her over the brink. Daily. Today was no different. She woke up to the sound of water. That was her first hint the boys were “up to something.” She found Micah and Evan slowly filling a large toy tub with water. They both had swim-suits on, and proclaimed that they were just getting ready to go swimming. Apparently it’s not too easy to keep the floor dry when transferring water from the bathroom to a toy-tub, especially at 7:00 in the morning.

Yep, God bless my wife!

I just found this: A drawing of June, rendered by Maggie Laraine Duehring approximately 2 years ago while June was pregnant with Eli. Next to June in the original drawing is a somewhat less flattering sketch of me, which will never be seen by anybody else while I am still alive.

Maggie lost her 3rd tooth tonight while eathing pizza. The pic doesn’t do justice to the lost tooth (bottom left of mouth, bottom right of pic), but it was a great pose for the camera…

And just to make it public knowledge, Evan pronounces “girl” as “greerl.” Yeah, kinda freaky.

Official tallies are all over the board, but we got somewhere between 7-9 inches of snow this week. I actually had to shovel twice. In two days. Yes, Winter does come to Kansas, so stop laughing! The kids love it, too. They get all bundled up, step outside, then come right back in. Then they do this all over again 10-20 minutes later. All day long. June loves Winter. Ha!