Happy Holidays

So, we haven't been very good at maintaining our blog this year but we can hope to do better next year. We are doing well. Gary just finished his first semester of kindergarten (do they call it a semester?) and had a great time. He was awarded the "Terrific Tiger" award last month for not getting his card pulled (for being bad) for an entire month. He is enjoying learning how to read and has lots of good friends at school. Bram is still sad to not be attending school with his best friend but he sure enjoys all the one on one time with his mother. Together, they love to play with their Transformers and are really hoping for an Optimus Prime for Christmas. Apparently it's their favorite thing but so are the many other things they see on TV and at the store so who really knows. They enjoyed having their Grandma Cornia visit in November while Larry was in China doing cleft lip and palate surgeries and walking on the Great Wall. They also enjoyed having their Grandma and Granddad Hartzell come visit recently for the first time in 2 years after being in Japan for most of that time on their church mission.

They also had a great time recently having their cousin Beatrix and Callum visit with Holly's brother Reed and his wife Shelley for Thanksgiving. Gary had an especially great time doing EVERYTHING with "B" - they were quite the duo!

Holly is just glad to finally have Larry back home for a little while after a few months of lots of traveling and meetings. She continues

to work on lots of different sewing projects for the house and friends. She is so creative and gifted!! (at least according to her adoring husband). Her latest project however has been trying to get Larry into shape (what's

the big deal that he now weighs 10 pounds more than he ever has???) by doing workout routines that involve running up and down our steep hill mixed in with some weights, pushups, situps,

etc. She has even gone as far as to encourage our home teacher to

invite Larry on moutain bike rides instead of coming by for hometeaching. She'll get him into shape one way or another!

Larry is now a chief resident in ENT and is enjoying all the surgeries and experiences he is having. He will be starting a 2 year fellowship at the conclusion of his residency in July to focus on pediatric ENT which will include cleft lip and palate surgery as well as advanced ear surgery and airway reconstruction among other things. The best part is that this will be done at Arkansas

CHildren's Hospital which means

no moving in June!

The house continues to consume a disproportionate amount of Larry and Holly's time. This year,

all 3 bathrooms have been remodeled in one way or another, about half of the ceilings had the

popcorn scraped off and of course painting. We hope this year won't be quite as crazy!

So, that's our family update. We hope all you, our friends and family, have had a great year and that the coming year will be wonderful. Most of all, we hope that Christ's spirit and perfect light

will brighten this holiday season for you all.

Love, The Hartzells

Happy Birthday Bram!

It's weird to think that 3 years ago today Bram came out screaming into this world. We can't believe that he's now 3!! He is still our little baby with his bright curly blonde hair and pretty blue eyes.

The morning started out very bright and early at 6 when

the boys decided to wake up and by 7 they were outside screaming while jumping on the tramp - waking up the neighborhood including their father who was on call and trying to catch just a little bit more shut eye. Holly baked some coffee cake which all except Bram enjoyed and got things ready so we were only about 1/2 hour late to church (there goes our record of 3 straight weeks of being at least 5

minutes early to church!!). After an uneventful day at church, we

rushed home, cleaned things up a bit and had some friends over for a low-key gathering.

Bram's favorite toy of the day, as we might have guessed, was the remote control train track set.

He might have been most excited however with the superman wrapping paper

on one of his "educational" toys.

He's now on his way to bed, already having visited the downstairs once and hopefully his last. He's still not sure how old he really is as when he is asked he'll vary from "25"

"6" "2 1/2" and "5 1/2" and getting those middle 3 fingers to show the age is quite the skill to develop apparently.

New Blog

Yes, Larry and Holly have finally joined the blogging world!! Hopefully, at least on a semi-regular basis, we will be able to keep you updated more easily this way on our crazy life as we wade through the trials and joys of residency and raising our two wonderful boys.
To get things started, this past week was a very busy one for our family. Larry switched from the relaxed lifestyle of being a resident at the VA where the day typically starts at 7 and ends at 5 with a very manageable pace of clinic and surgery during the day - typically. He is now back at the University hospital as the chief resident of the service and his days, at least this week, started before 6 every day and ended after 8. As you might guess, this week WORE ME OUT and fell asleep Friday night while reading Gary The Whindingdilly on the couch (he was the last one up that night) at about 8 pm and waking up to the tears and laughter of our boys at about 7 am. I'm still not fully recovered but am getting there... But who knows what this week has in store. Saturday, Larry spent the afternoon once again working on the bathroom (pretty much a weekly project ever since April) and things are now set up for laying tile hopefully next Saturday. A new ceiling light was also installed in the kitchen and he barely managed to get the house cleaned before Holly and the boys returned home from their day trip down south where they rode canoes and horses and played with their friends (the Sharpe's, Griffin's and Tobler's).
Holly has continued with her sewing projects and was able to make a variety of new pillow cases to match the quilt she previously made as well as a couple other inventive things for around the house.
Gary just finished with his second week of school and has quickly realized that school is not for having fun but for learning (which is what he explained to Bram one day as his younger brother was upset he couldn't go to school with Gary). It is a little different how even in kindergarten they only get 20 minutes of recess right after lunch and otherwise they're in different learning activities ... all day long. Poor Mrs. Jones! Gary loves his Transformer toys (much to his mother's chagrin), even more than his Star Wars toys (much to his father's sorrow).
Bram is enjoying having his "mama's" undivided attention for about 7 hours a day starting from when they walk Gary the mile to school in the morning until they pick him up with the stroller in the afternoon. Holly still hasn't figured out how to use this "one child down" status to her advantage but she's working hard on that.
Well, that's it for us for now. We'll try to be as faithful bloggers as possible!