2008 Christmas Greeting

Happy Holidays from the Hanna household! We hope this season finds you happy, healthy and thankful for Christ's birth.

I apologize for this high tech greeting this year. As I began composing our annual letter, I realized it was going to be quite a bit longer than usual so I thought this might be a better way to communicate?!?!? Also, I did just enter the Age of Technology in July when my wonderful husband bought me a new iPhone. It was only then that I began e-mailing, texting and well, let's face it being a part of the human race. With my new found skills, I also started playing around with a website and blogsite for Razzle Dazzle. (If you are interested in seeing more pictures of the girls, just go to razzledazzlestudio.com).

Now let's see what 2008 has held for the Hannas. After owning our "Wilderness" for almost 3 1/2 years now, we may actually be planning to live out there. Since I was a young girl, I've always had dreams of being Laura Ingalls and living in a little log cabin with a loft. I so admired her family and dreamed of riding in a horse-drawn wagon with Pa to Sleepy Eye and helping Ma and Mary bake pies and tend the chickens. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that over the last decade I've asked my mother-in-law for the "Little House on the Prairie"dvd collections. For the past two years, our family has enjoyed watching the Ingalls family grow up and persevere no matter what the obstacle. You can imagine my horror when my first-born, blood of my blood, dearest daughter remarked last week, "Mom, you know you're a lot more like Mrs. Olsen than Ma!" WHAT?!?!?!? My only response has been to call her "Nellie", Faith is now "Willie" and you guessed it - Kev is now lovingly referred to as "Nels". So, once (if) our little log cabin in the woods is finished, everyone is invited over to the Olsens' for some good ole' family fun!

You know, if I was really honest with myself, there might be a touch of truth in Gracie's assessment. All three of our girls' favorite tv station is "FOOD NETWORK". It doesn't matter who the chef is or what they're preparing, my girls are glued to the set. Recently, we were invited to some friend's home for a wonderful wholesome dinner made from scratch with all natural ingredients. It was quite yummy, but when we returned home Gracie asked, "mom, what was that food????" I had to inform her that it's what people call eating healthy! This was a completely new concept for my family. My cooking motto has always been, "If it's edible - it's fry-able"! So, yeah, maybe I'm not as much like Ma Ingalls as I'd like.

Gracie, now in the 3rd grade, has definitely had a year of adjustments. After two years of enjoying pushing her tongue toward her teeth with every swallow, she was fitted this summer with a "tongue thrust apparatus". The excitement and anticipation of getting something new came to a screeching halt when the "apparatus" turned out to be very similar to Hannibal Lecter's mouthpiece in "Silence of the Lambs"! Fortunately, this mode of torture was only endured for a few months and now she is only wearing braces. In addition to new mouth wear, Gracie also spent the past year undergoing several eye evaluations to determine why she was having trouble in school. Blessedly, we were referred to an eye specialist in Edmond who works to "retrain" the eye's muscles and the brain to track and focus together. She's almost completed six months of therapy and should finish by Spring Break. Our little girl now loves school, constantly has a book in her hand and is even in the Horizons program at Grove. Even after dealing with all this excitement, Gracie has found time to enjoy volleyball, church choir, dance and gymnastics.

Faith, now in the 1st grade, has also had a very rambunctious past year. This past summer, our dance studio "Razzle Dazzle" built on a gymnastics center. With a nickname like "Muscles" what else would you expect her to do but tumble, tumble, tumble! She has chosen not to limit her expertise to the studio but also practices vaults, catapults, and high-flying trapeze feats in our living room. We recently arrived home to see her performing an "airplane" manuever with her baby-sitter that resulted in her flying through the air head first into a coffee table. We had to scold the baby-sitter and explain she didn't have to do everything Faith asked her to do. Grammie (aka baby-sitter) then informed us she had successfully performed the "airplane" at least 50 times before we arrived home! Also this year, our child who has never known the word "FEAR" is trying to overcome her kryptonite - pulling teeth. She has had such a fear of the possible pain this activity would involve that she has chosen to allow her new adult teeth to come in on top of the baby teeth. Because God designed us differently than sharks, her second row of teeth have had to descend from what would appear to be her nasal cavity. Even the strange looks she receives has not deterred her in her determination to let the baby teeth dissolve instead of being extracted. All this aside, Faith has had an outstanding year! She's enjoying volleyball, church choir, dance, gymnastics and telling jokes.

And then there's little Hope, 3 years-old, who is constantly busy planning, bossing and playing. Because we felt like she would be so lonely with her sisters in school, we enrolled her in our church's Mother's Day Out program where she would attend on Thursdays. Every week it has been quite an ordeal to persuade her to attend (although she always has fun) but recently she has been announcing on Wednesday evenings that she just remembered they canceled her "school" for tomorrow! And I thought this kind of manipulation manifested in 1st grade?!?! Hope, like any typical 3-year-old, has the "I can do it myself" attitude coupled with marvelous fashion sense. She has decided her cheetah print mini-skirt really goes well with ---well, EVERYTHING and if one hair barrette looks good, then think how good eight would look! To those of you who have seen us out and about and have been able to keep a straight face, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Hope has been introduced to the sorrow and joy of our life cycle this past year. In September we had to bury her beloved hamster "Big Cedar" where the funeral service included our family dancing to the "Hamster Dance" song and then in November she witnessed her sisters' hamsters becoming parents. Hope is now the proud owner of a beautiful dwarf hamster named "Cinderella" that she carries and plays with constantly. Some nights "Cinderella" sleeps in her cage and other nights Hope gives "Cinderella" the gift of freedom to explore our home. I guess she really enjoyed having "babies" in our house and has decided the only thing she wants for Christmas is a real BABY. She has circled all the babies in the toy catalogs instead of the toys the babies are advertising. It should be a very interesting Christmas morning. Hope is also undergoing eye therapy with her sister and is making excellent progress! She loves singing, dancing, tumbling and bossing - not necessarily in that order.

Kevin and I are doing fine, enjoying life and having fun! We hope the same for all of you. Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.