The Gonzalez Family Herald

Headlines and commentary from a Northern California family of seven.

Saturday, December 31, 2005

Hasta la 2006

So here we sit, the younger 40% of our kids (and a full 57.14% of out entire household) are recovering from a nasty flu. I was thinking that my wife and I could be out hooping it up, dancing and singing and drinking and revelling the night away. But nooooooo. Instead we get to remain imprisoned in our sick house sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, with stuffy heads and needing to rest. And two of our youngest are sharing in this joy with us.

So, rather than torture myself with what could be (not that my wife and I would have gone anywhere anyway), I was thinking that I would take a look back at 2005 and regail you with stories of our cutenesses and cuddliness. By I can't remember past two hours ago, so I will just have to use that time frame.

We just finished dinner a little bit ago. As we were finishing dinner our five year old was having a hard time putting down her last few bites. My wife told her to eat her broccoli. My five year old, without hesitation, turned to my wife, opened her hand to expose a semi-eaten peice of pork and asked, "What about this?". Hmmm, what about that?

At the same time our two year old was sitting in her chair with her shirt around her waist. I guess what I mean is my daughter put both of her arms through her neck hole in the shirt and slid the shirt down to her waist as she turned back and forth like the spin cycle of our washer machine. Very cute, until she took her plate and turned it upside down making a colorful mess of dinner spilt nicely across our table. Not so cute.

So after dinner we served up desert. As my wife served our two year old her piece of strawberry cheesecake my daughter looked to my wife and asked "Is it blueblerries?". Yes sweetheart, it is blueblerries.

Ending it off with some photos
Twas the boys first Christmas...

And under the tree...

Was a boy that was eating the lights' energy,

The two year old stuffed with frosting so green,

And the five year old's so fivey that she now eats clean.


The eight year old's happy that Felicity's here,

And Sarah can blog about Marisol with cheer.

Look, just what she wanted, a frame oh so old...
No wait, it IS sparkly and set in gold.
So away put this Christmas, wrap it up with out fear,
It will be back again in the Happy New Year!



So my rhyming needs work, big deal... Happy new year to you all. May God richly bless you in 2006 and may you be completely victimized by the abundance, grace and mercy of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Sharks, hats and a chubby boy

The other day my friend called me up and asked if I wanted to go a San Jose Sharks game. It didn't take long for me to say "Yeah!". So last night we went to San Jose to watch the Sharks take on the Anaheim Ducks.

I like sports. And though I have never really been into hockey that much I have to say that attending my first hockey game was freakin's cool! When it comes to spectating a sporting event that involves an oval, there really is no bad seat in the house. No matter where you sit the view is great. And SJ Sharks games are different than any other professional sporting event I have ever been to.

The announcer was walking around the arena all game long, makeing announcments from wherever he happened to be at the time. There was a lot of music (as long as the game was not in action) and the intermission activities were really cool. There were lots of cool prizes given out all night long and just a lot of fun to be had. This is sooo not like a pro Basketball game. Or a Raiders game, which in and of itself, is an entirely different experience not suitable for all ages.

One of the cool things that happened last night was we saw Jonathan Cheechoo score his first hat trick of his carreer. Three goals in one game. Pretty cool huh? We also saw a hockey fight, fast skating referees, faster skating hockey players and a whole lot of excitement. In fact, the only thing that was not cool about the evening was the temperature inside the arena. You would think that for an ice based sport it would be cool in the arena. Uh, think again.

Oh yeah, another uncool thing... $4.25 for a mocha and $4.75 for a soda. Oh well, the event was still awesome.

Who is that chubby boy?
My son had a check up today. At just under six months of age he weighs a whopping 17 pounds, 11 ounces. Isn't that the size of a stuffed Christmas day turkey? Ooh, Christmas... Oooh, Oooh, turkey.

Wake up, Robert. D'Oh! Oh well, just a few more days til Christmas and food.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Bush-a-beece after sikabetty

I knew a title like that would make you want to read more! So exactly what am I saying? I think a better question is what is my two year old trying to say with that.

If you have read anything here you would know that everyday I am astounded at how advanced my two year old is. She has been showing signs of extreme intelligence and common sense since she was able to move. One thing that she has shown extremely strong growth in is vocabulary and speaking.

Of course, she has an advantage over other two year old kids. First, my daughter has three older sisters that constantly show her the ropes. She is in their back pockets all the time so she has no other option than to learn.

Second, she has a mother that could easily be voted the best teacher in the country if homeschooling mothers were given a second thought when it comes to education.

Thirdly, she comes from a smart heritage. Her mother and I are very smart people (not to be conceited; we are just smart folk).

So when my daughter speaks I expect that the words coming out of her mouth will be intelligible words that your common adult speaker would not only understand but be able to respond to. But then there are times when she is just totally two years old.

Take tonight for example. In her words we were having "meatballs, garlic bread and sikabetty". Isn't that sooo cute? She can say almost every word in her vocabulary with ease, but spaghetti seems to not want to come out straight. Sikabetty. Ha, that is plain two years old.

Not to be silenced by that piece of cuteness, one other word (or words) that she gets a little twisted is "brush my teeth". To her it is "bush a beece". Every night as a matter of fact, when the bigger sisters go to the bathroom to brush their teeth, right behind them is a little daughter running and screaming "I need to bush a beece!". Oh the joy...

From the desk of a nine year old Sarah
Did you hear about the young couple that wanted to get married at Yosemite National Park? They had their wetting ceremony at the bottom of Bridal Veil Falls.
Disclaimer: This was not the original use of the joke. All representations of the joke made by dad are not covered by any warranty, expressed or implied. Your reading of this joke is your agreement to be bound by the funniness contained therein without malice or contempt.

Hope you enjoyed. Good night.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

Being sick womps

Yesterday afternoon (about 2:00 PM or so) I felt fine. Yesterday evening (at about 6:00 PM) I felt like crud. What gives?

How can a person get sick and start to feel like garbage in the span of a few hours? I mean, it was the total package. Headache, fever, throat, ears, weekness, tiredness. All within a few hours.

Man, if I find the guy who wrote this virus...

Rodeo, rodeo, where for you at?
I was watching rodeo earlier today and I got thinking. Who would have ever thought of getting on the back of a wild horse, or a bull with a nasty dispostion, and riding the varmint until it bucked you off? Am I missing something here? OK, OK, I know that football is another one of those sports that makes you ask yourself "What the...?". But I am a severe football fan, so I will leave the sport alone for now.

But really, what's with steer raslin', cattle ropin' and bull ridin'? At what point does a person, sitting on top of an agitated bovine, think to themselves "Man I love this sport. Yeehawww!"? Oh well, if it pays the bills, so be it.

Christmas and the lightning fast lips of a child
When developing his theory of relativity, I don't think that Einstein ever took into consideration the speed at which a child's mouth moves when walking down the toy aisle at Walmart. Or how fast a parent will swipe their card to make Christmas memorable... again.

Nighty night. Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

Thursday, December 08, 2005

iBuying, ePodding, Dimensionalizing

The other day iGot an iPod. At first iWas a little intimidated by the small but powerful device. But then iBecame a little more comfortable with it so iStarted to play around with it.

Well, iTell you, this little thing is some kind of cool. iHave the 20GB device that allows for photo storage as well as music and files. The file storage, well that is something that iFind to be the most useful thing. iWas using several different portable media storage devices and iFound that having this many storage devices was insanely frustrating. Which one do iUse today? Do iWant the xD card or the SD card? Or should iTry the MemoryStick. Oh oh, iKnow, iHave my SanDisk flash drive. Maybe iCan use that. It was a total mess every time iThought of storing something. But not anymore!

Staying up late and talking out loud are not meant to peacfully coexist
The other night my wife and I were up late. We were both pretty loopy (partly from the late night Taco Bell and partly from the whole parenting five young kids thing) and as I was talking I said something to the effect of "That's it, I'm ibuying me epod stuff from now on." For all those of you who are married to me this makes perfect sense. To everyone else, well, propose to me and I'll translate.

Smart kids can be eerily intelligent sometimes
It was cute when my then 24 month old started using the term "also" when talking. It was spooky when she started using it correctly.

It was cute when she started using the term actually. It was spooky when she would use the term after a pause in her sentence in which she changed her mind from one thing to another, actually.

It was awesome when my five year old (5 in September) began reading complete sentences just a few weeks after reading her first words. It was astonishing when she read her first young readers book cover to cover. It was downright freaky when she got on the computer the other day and managed to write out, using the key board, "youlovemeiloveyou". She doesn't know where the space bar is. Or where the delete key is.

Enough is enough
OK, bragging time is over. Now it is time to graduate the daytime into night and for me to put the dimensionalizer away before someone gets hurt. What's a dimensionalizer you ask? A tape measure. Hey Buzz Lightyear isn't the only one who likes to use unilateral bonding strip.

TO INFINITY... AND BEYOND!