Some quick greetings of the season to you!  It doesn't look like we'll get a full-fledged Christmas mailing out this year...  Aaron is frantically producing four books for Zondervan and Amity is frantically producing a child.  But we do want to pause and wish you Merriment as the world remembers Christ's birth.

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In baby news, it turns out that our "Cinco" is actually a "Cinca."  Her due date is Dec 31, so we're in the homestretch now.  Because of this, we decided not to travel all over for the holidays.  During our nice quiet Thanksgiving at home, we went around the table telling each other what we are thankful for.  Four year old Lily had this gem: "Mommy, you are the bestest woman in the whole world," then turning to dad, "Daddy, you are the second best woman in the world."  Second place isn't too bad...

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Elijah is quite a talker.  Whenever he's surprised, Elijah has started saying, "What the Nugget?"  No idea where that came from - he started saying it on his own.

And it's cute how he says the kids names:  Isaac: Oggit,  Gracie: Sase,  Lily: Yeeyee or Lolly,  Elijah: Schyi-schyah,  Cinca: Inca.

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The kids have this goofy made-up game they call "Tigger Poke" where they jump around the room until they drop from exhaustion.  I get the "Tigger" part, but the "poke" confused me.  I finally asked, and Isaac gave a very logical explanation.  If you move slowly, you're a slowpoke.  If you move fast, you're a fastpoke.  Jumping?  Yep.  Tiggerpoke.

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The two girls have an odd method of imaginary play.  Here's how it sounds:

GRACIE: Lily pretend you're a baby cheetah and I'm Hannah Montana.  Lily you say, "Boo hoo hoo."
LILY: "Boo hoo hoo."  Gracie you say "What's wrong baby cheetah?"
GRACIE: "What's wrong baby cheetah?"  Now you say "I lost my mama!"
LILY: "I lost my mama!"  Now you say "I'll help you find her."
GRACIE: "I'll help you find her."  Now you say...

And on it goes.  Constantly.  It's like they are both movie directors or screenwriters.  They don't just imagine... instead they imagine through the other person -- they put dialogue in each other's mouths...  Weirdness.

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While we'd had a boy's name picked out for a long time, discovering that a little girl has been lurking inside Amity spurred many months of name debates.  We love names and consider them very important.  After going round and round we have finally settled on one!  Since it's unlikely we'll have eight more girls, and it would be a shame to let the runners-up go to waste, I thought I'd throw our list up as recommendations in case anyone else finds themselves in a future baby naming predicament.  Or if you get lots of goldfish.  And I thought it might be fun to show the kind of names we lean toward...  You might consider, as we did:
Moriah,
Zion,
Getty,
Journey,
Bethany,
Abigail,
Crimson,
Evangeline,
Olive.
So which did we settle on?  The world will find out shortly...

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And with that, Glad Tidings and Great Joy be unto you this Christmas!

(It appears this letter did end up pretty full.  I don't know how fledged it was, but it was full...)
Much love from Aaron, Amity, Isaac, Grace, Lily, Elijah, and Cinca Zenz