Christmas Letter 2010

I started including my blog address on the Christmas card a few years back when we moved to France, especially since covering something like that in a Christmas letter is nigh to impossible.  Last year, I gave up on the printed Christmas letter altogether and simply put the blog address on our Christmas card in hopes that folks might stop by online to check out the happenings at Chez Wilkes.

However, I do understand that many people will not check out a web address on a Christmas card.  That being the case, there may be several of you out there that are checking this year from the sheer shock of seeing another child in our family picture!

Hopefully, this entry will catch you up.  All of the events in this letter have more detailed blog entries and photos in the blog archives.  Feel free to browse!

Easily, our biggest news of 2010 is that Jeremy Dylan Wilkes joined our family early on Good Friday morning, April 2, 2010.  He weighed in at 8 pounds, 2 ounces, and was almost 21 inches long.  He arrived about 30 minutes after we got to the hospital, and that in itself is a pretty good story.

We thought that we were done with babies, so his arrival has definitely changed things around here!  Jeremy is a truly delightful, good-natured baby and has been a wonderful addition to our family.  At 8 months, he is cruising around the furniture and crawling at lightning-fast speed.  He is into everything, and it takes all of us to keep him from hurting himself and our stuff.

But Jeremy thinks that his big brother and sister are pretty neat people and doesn’t mind when they take their things away from him…most of the time.  And Charlotte and Elijah have been pretty patient with him, too…most of the time!

Our next-biggest news from this past year is that Elijah made the decision to become a Christian, and he was baptized on August 11 by his dad at our home congregation, Richwoods Christian Church.  As his parents, Jeff and I couldn’t be more proud of him.  Two new births this year are more than we could ever have dreamed, and we feel truly blessed.

I think that does it for life-changing events, so here is a quick rundown on the rest of our year.

Jeff continues to work at Caterpillar, and this year brought a little bit of travel, this time to Asia, where he has spent some time in both Japan and Thailand.  He finished up our major basement renovation project in the spring, so Charlotte and Elijah have new bedrooms, something of a necessity with Jeremy’s arrival.  In January, we had a small disaster when our sump pump quit and our basement was flooded with several inches of water.  But we dried it out, replaced the carpet, and now have a very nice downstairs living area.

We were blessed for Jeff to be able to take family leave for six weeks when Jeremy was born, and it was wonderful to have him home in those early, bleary days of caring for a newborn.  Jeff finished up the school year with the kids, which meant they had a fantastic math and science teacher for the last few weeks.  He went back to work toward the end of the May, and we surely did miss him at the house.

Charlotte had a very interesting year, which included a leg broken in the course of playing soccer.  It happened on 9/11 and was a freakish accident; her leg collided with another kid’s when they both went to kick a ball.  He hopped away, saying, “Ow, ow, ow!”, and Charlotte fell to the ground with a fractured tibia.  This resulted in a walking boot for seven weeks and in restricted activity for another four weeks beyond that.  She recovered in time to start basketball, which Jeff is coaching for her this year.  She wants to play soccer again in the spring, and, I suppose, she probably will!  She truly loves sports and tries whatever we will let her.  She attended tennis and basketball camps this summer, as well as heading to Little Galilee Christian Camp for her first time at church camp.

She is also working hard at tae kwon do and has earned her brown belt.  I think that she was an orange belt last year at this time, so she is making remarkable progress.  The broken leg set her back a bit, but not much.  Charlotte is also still taking piano and is cranking her way through the fifth grade.  She turned 10 this past June, and it is very hard to believe that we are the parents of a child in double digits!

Elijah also played soccer for the first time this year and attended a soccer camp this summer.  Jeff coached his team in the spring, and Elijah played for another coach in the fall.  Elijah has also worked up to his brown belt in tae kwon do, and we are very pleased to watch his progress.  He is eight and in third grade, and he has risen to the occasion this year, with his reading ability taking off and making school much easier for him.  Elijah has really gotten into Legos this year and takes much pride and joy in reworking his kits into his own creations.

Elijah started taking guitar lessons this fall, which he really enjoys.  But he is our child who likes down time, so with tae kwon do, guitar, and school, he’s happy to take the winter season off from additional activities.

As we are still homeschooling, this year has been a big learning curve for me.  We are figuring out how to work around Jeremy’s morning schedule, just as Jeremy learns to go along when that’s required.  We joined the Tri-County Homeschool Co-Op this school year, during which the kids take such classes as history, writing, life skills science, music, drama, and P.E. in a school-like atmosphere a few Fridays a month.  I taught an essay writing class to 19 ninth- through twelfth-graders, which was something I had not done in nine years!  Charlotte, Elijah, and I all had a great experience with it and are looking forward to second semester.

With taking care of a baby, teaching, and keeping up with the older kids’ activities, I stay pretty busy.  A friend and I started a new women’s group this fall through church, which combines running, Bible study, and fellowship, and that has been good motivation to keep me out and running.  I ran three races this fall and am considering training for a half-marathon again in the spring, but it’s definitely challenging running in snow and sub-zero wind chills!  I’ve fallen off a bit this month, so I’d better get moving!

Other highlights were a weekend trip to St. Louis, Missouri, for Charlotte’s birthday in June and a family vacation to Branson, Missouri, in October.  The older two kids spent a week with Jeff’s parents in late July, so Jeff and I had a flashback to being alone with just one baby…very interesting!

All in all, we had a good year.  Our lives took a sudden sharp turn this year with Jeremy’s arrival, but we wouldn’t trade it (or him) for anything!

As we celebrate the advent of the baby who changed the world, I hope that this Christmas season finds you healthy, happy, and surrounded by those whom you love best.  Drop us a note…we would love to hear from you!

Merry Christmas!

To Sit Back and Enjoy

On Tuesday, December 7, Charlotte and Elijah participated in their homeschool Christmas program.  But it was very nearly a miss.

We usually have co-op on Fridays, but, for our last one, there was a conflict with the church where we meet.  So, co-op was rescheduled for Monday.  However, on Sunday night, I started feeling a tad sick.  It was nothing major, but it was definitely enough to put me off my feed.  The baby had been having diarrhea since Friday, but I had attributed it to teething, as his appetite hadn’t been affected and he wasn’t acting sick.

Boy, was I wrong.

By 11:00 on Sunday night, Elijah was throwing up.  By 7:00 on Monday morning, Charlotte threw up.  I was starting to believe that Jeremy had contracted a stomach virus somewhere and happily shared it with the rest of us. 

Sometime in the middle of the night when Elijah was throwing up, Jeff decided that it might be best if he stayed home on Monday, as he wasn’t feeling great by then, and I had to go to co-op the next morning, at least for a little while, to pass back papers and get the Christmas party I had planned for my students started.  Plus, I had 20 treat boxes to pass out to the kids’ teachers.  Argh!

So, the kids all stayed home with Jeff while I went to co-op for a couple hours and took care of my business.  By the time I got home with a two-liter of Sierra Mist, Charlotte and Elijah were feeling a lot better and didn’t throw up again.  It seemed that they had gotten by with a 24-hour bug, thank God.

That evening and the next, though, Jeremy vomited, in addition to his other problems.  Still, his appetite wasn’t affected, but his little body was still not processing food correctly either.  So, we broke out the Pedialyte.

However, by Tuesday evening, Charlotte and Elijah were both better, so they were able to participate in the Christmas program.  Charlotte’s age group (the 5th and 6th graders) performed three short plays on which they had been working the entire semester.  Charlotte was a narrator for two of them and had a small speaking part in the other one.  As always, she did a great job!

Elijah’s age group performed a musical program called “Christmas around the World,” in which they sang carols that originate or are popular in different countries.  Elijah had a small narration part about Christmas in France and was pulled out in a small group to sing a part of “The Holly and the Ivy” during Christmas in England.  I could actually hear his voice singing out during the songs…fabulous!

What was really different about this particular Christmas program was my total lack of involvement in any aspect of it.  As a homeschooling mom, I am a very involved parent by the simple fact that I am the teacher.  But for this co-op, I am, for once, not teaching my own kids!  So this program was a complete surprise to me, and I was able to sit back and just enjoy my children participating in it.  My only contribution was two dozen cookies for the dessert reception afterwards.

Well, I sort of sat back and enjoyed it.  Jeff and I, of course, had to take turns holding a very antsy baby who was not quite well.  But, in spite of that, we very much enjoyed the show.

Unfortunately, by the end of the program, Jeff was stricken with the stomach virus, the final victim of that nastiness.  He spent the night on the couch, shivering and trying not to throw up.  Fortunately, his bout only lasted about 24 hours, too, which was particularly good since he was headed for Thailand on Friday.  Yikes.

Compared to the rest of the family, I wasn’t really sick at all.

I actually called the doctor on Wednesday about Jeremy.  He had never acted sick, but he had also cut severely back on his wet diapers, which is never a good sign in a baby.  The nurse told me to keep a close watch on that, give him Pedialyte whenever he had a dirty diaper, and make sure that he still had tears and saliva.  Happily, the next day, I could tell that he was past the worst of it, and, by Saturday, his diapers were completely back to normal.

And I was glad to see the end of that.

And I am also glad to say that I am caught up on happenings around the Wilkes house.  My next post will very likely be the Christmas letter…stay tuned!

Meeting Santa

Now that I am finally to December happenings, I am breathing a bit easier!  The end for 2010 updates is in sight!

My dad came down to watch the kids in the Richwoods Christmas play and to watch Charlotte play her first basketball game.  The first weekend in December was quite full.  In addition to these two events, I had also bought tickets for the local Breakfast with Santa, something that we attended for the first time last year and very much enjoyed.  I wanted to go this year for sure because of our new addition to the family; it’s always lots of fun to see how babies react to the white-bearded man in the red suit!

I must say that I didn’t enjoy the breakfast nearly as much this year, especially at first.  We arrived 45 minutes after it started, and they were already out of milk for breakfast.  They still had coffee and orange juice, but the kids and I don’t drink either one, nor does my dad.  They were also out of many supplies for the crafts that are part of the admission price.  Stuff like this always perplexes me; they have to know how many tickets they sold.  How can they run out of stuff 45 minutes after it starts?!

In any case, as with last year, my dad bought each of us some raffle tickets, and the kids had a great time dropping theirs into the cans in front of the prizes they liked.  And, believe it or not, one of Elijah’s tickets actually won this year!  He and Charlotte (because we insisted that, since they hadn’t paid for the tickets in the first place and since Charlotte had also dropped a ticket in that can, that they could share) became the proud owners of a kids’ educational laptop, a red Christmas tree decoration, and a $25 gift certificate to a local gas station.  Not too shabby!

Jeremy thought he should have won a prize, too, so he tried to climb Charlotte to get hers.

As far as Jeremy meeting Santa, he took pretty well to the Big Guy.  I’m not sure if it’s because the other two kids were close by or because he’s just generally a pretty agreeable baby, but we were able to get a pretty good picture of the kids with Santa this year.

Later on that afternoon, Charlotte had her first basketball game.  I wasn’t able to get all that many pictures because I spent a lot of time trying to keep Jeremy from killing himself on the bleachers, but I got a few.  Charlotte is number 32.

Her team didn’t win, but the score didn’t really reflect how close most of the game was.  I hate it when that happens.  It’s when I have to keep repeating to myself, “It’s only game.  What’s important is that she had fun.”  I wonder if I keep telling myself that long enough, I’ll talk myself into believing it?!

Shortly after the game, my dad headed back to Michigan.  Here’s a picture of him and the kids before he took off.

That evening, Jeff and I had a work Christmas dinner party to attend, so we dropped the three kids off at some friends’ house for the evening.  The house was beautiful, and the supper delicious.  However, the weather wasn’t great and the roads were quite slippery, so I was happy to arrive safely back at home.

On Sunday morning, we slept in and then spent the morning decorating the tree.  Why weren’t we in church, you may ask?  Well, Richwoods is launching a second worship sight across the river from Peoria on the east side.  We will be meeting in a junior high school in East Peoria on Sunday evenings for the month of December, before moving to our regular time on Sunday mornings at 10:00 in January.  Ergo, we get to sleep in and take it easy on Sunday mornings this month!

I think that the kids had hung up their new 2010 ornaments, but that was about all that on the tree until this first Sunday in December.  We had to cut back a bit on ornaments, since we couldn’t put many low on the tree due to Mr. Jeremy, but we were still pretty pleased with the end result.  Here are the kids hanging their new ornaments for the camera.  Well, the older two are.  Jeremy really just wants to eat his.

I was glad to get this done.  Now, it really feels as if Christmas can come!

Next time, I will tell you all about the homeschool co-op Christmas program.

Have a good one!

Celebrating Another Year

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, Jeff’s birthday brought the first snowfall of the winter.  Charlotte wrote this limerick especially for the birthday card that she made him:

A birthday comes but once a year

So when it comes we must give a big cheer

By now we should know

That on your birthday, it will always snow

Let’s have fun now because your next is not near.

Very nice, very nice.  Here’s Jeff with his crew.

Jeff’s birthday was rather low-key this year, as Jeff and Charlotte had basketball practice that night.  I realized, after I had made the brownies, that I didn’t have any birthday candles.  As the grocery store here in town has closed, I couldn’t really remedy that.  But being the creative person that I am, I snagged one of the Advent candles and slapped that down on top of the brownies.  I know…very classy.

Jeff took one bite of the brownies and guessed Charlotte’s “secret” ingredient of which she was very proud.  “Is there mint in these?”  Jeff inquired.  “Yes!” Charlotte excitedly answered.  “Four chopped up candy canes!  There were supposed to be ten, but that would have used up all that we had!”

As Jeff had also bought himself the early birthday presents of a pressure washer and an electric snow blower, his birthday was also a bit low on gifts.  But I did manage to come up with one, a new holder for his iPhone, as his old one had broken.

I also got a few cute pictures of the kids during our celebration.  Jeremy has just recently figured out that we would like for him to smile when we point a camera at him, so I’ve been able to get some really cute photos.

Our next big event was the annual Richwoods Christian Church Christmas play.  The kids had the dress rehearsal on Thursday night and the performance on Friday night.  The play was called “Joy Story,” a takeoff on “Toy Story,” in which Christmas presents under the tree learn the real meaning of Christmas.  It was absolutely adorable…a great script, fantastic costumes, just really well done.

Here are a few pictures from the dress rehearsal and actual performance.

Charlotte played the part of Rozfozzle, a marionette who doesn’t quite fit in with all of the other beautiful and amazing toys.  Her costume rendered her nearly unrecognizable and made me laugh every time I looked at her.  With her long arms and legs, she was really well-suited to this part, and she did a great job.

Elijah was Artie, the crayon box, who was dreadfully worried about the missing Red and Violet.  He, too, did a great job and is hoping to get a bigger speaking part next year, as he had so much fun this year.

And, once again, I co-directed the angel choir.  Here are some of my little angels.

And here’s a final shot of my two big kids.  I love it!

This was a rather bittersweet year for the Christmas play, as it is Charlotte’s last one.  She moves to the youth group next year.  Yikes!  But we have a couple more years with Elijah, so it’s all good.

Next up:  breakfast with Santa, Charlotte’s first basketball game, and the homeschool co-op Christmas program.  And, then, I think that I am caught up!

Stay tuned for the Christmas letter, coming up very shortly!

In Three Places at Once

Our time at Dogwood Canyon ended the planned part of our vacation.  For those of you who know me well, you will rightly assume that this is a bit unusual.  I’m not overly sure what happened to my planning gene for this trip; I think it got covered up with trying to take care of a baby!

Anyway, we still had a short list of things we wanted to do, namely visit the other two nearby states that border Missouri and eat a meal at Lambert’s Café, the Only Home of Throwed Rolls.  We had no hotel reservations and no plan beyond that.

So, when we packed up at Dogwood Canyon, we headed toward Joplin, Missouri.  Only we were sort of in the middle of nowhere, and the shortest route between Dogwood Canyon and the interstate was an hour of the hilliest, curviest roads that I have ever seen.  I’m not prone to carsickness, but these roads were enough to turn even my stomach.

Finally, we reached the interstate and made the rest of the drive past Joplin.  Our first stop was a place that Jeff had actually found on a map:  State Line Road, on the premises of an Indian reservation’s casino!

What was very cool about this particular stop is that there was a marker showing exactly where Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma butted against each other.  Of course, this was a perfect opportunity for some goofy photos!

By this time, we were ready to eat, and southwestern Missouri has a restaurant that central Illinois, so far, does not:  Chick-Fil-A.  So, that’s where we headed.  While there, Jeff made us a reservation at a nearby Comfort Inn, complete with a swimming pool.  I had packed our bathing suits, just in case, so we spent the rest of the evening swimming, watching TV, and playing cards.  I thought this was a funny scene.

The next morning, we ate breakfast and decided to visit a place of which we had seen a billboard on our drive through Joplin.  Nearby Carthage, Missouri, is the home of the Precious Moments Park.  Part Visitors Center, part gift shop, part museum, and part beautiful grounds, this a place that pleasantly surprised all of us.

While I am not a huge Precious Moments fan, I do buy a dated Christmas ornament every year, something I started back in 1995 when Jeff and I were first married.  I thought that it might be fun to buy one where the Precious Moments thing started.  And there is, indeed, a huge gift shop.  But there is also an interesting museum that traces the evolution of this line of giftware and a huge private collection that a woman donated some years back. 

There are also some life sized figurines from the Birthday Train collection, which my mom has bought for Charlotte since she was a baby.  Charlotte was very excited about this and wanted each of the kids to pose next to their “age.”  Charlotte actually posed next to nearly all of them before we left!

We also found a life-size figurine in honor of the rescue workers from the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City.

At the back of the property was a chapel, custom-designed by Sam Butcher, who created the Precious Moments line, that features the 23rd Psalm and the Beatitudes in stained glass.  There are also many paintings of stories from the Old and New Testaments and a huge mural called “The Hallelujah Square,” which depicts Precious Momentized real people who have died untimely deaths arriving in heaven.  Sam Butcher lost his own son to an early death in a car accident .  While the chapel is undeniably sad, it is also a beautiful memorial.

We ended our visit in the gift shop, where I did, indeed, purchase a 2010 dated ornament!

When we finished up here, we headed back toward Springfield, Missouri, and slightly south to the town of Sikeston, where we were seated almost immediately at Lambert’s Café, the throwed rolls place.  Lambert’s serves large portions of good country cooking; there is also wait staff walking around with large pots of okra, macaroni and tomatoes, fried potatoes, black-eyed peas, and sorghum and honey, which are served to anyone who has ordered a meal.  The throwed rolls come in when the bread man comes along, hollering, “Hot rolls!”  Then, you hold up your hand, and he pitches a roll across the room at you. 

Charlotte and Elijah were absolutely delighted with this place and ended up eating more bread than anything else!  I don’t think that I saw a single roll end up on the floor.  When we got done eating, we were nearly sick with how much food we had consumed!

By this time, it was around 2:30, and we were about six or seven hours away from home.  We had planned on being gone through Friday, and, as it was just Thursday, we wondered what else we should do. 

Wine tasting?  There was a good wine trail if we headed back west a bit.  But the kids vetoed this one.  We could have overridden their veto, but, quite honestly, the thought of pulling the baby and two other cranky kids out of the car at a series of wineries was a bit overwhelming.

Should we head to Mark Twain country in Hannibal, Missouri?  This was a possibility, but, when we started looking for hotels, we weren’t having much luck.

At last, we decided to just head home, and we arrived about 9:30 on Thursday night.  We spent Friday relaxing and recovering, glad to be home after a busy vacation.

And, finally, finally, I am finished with Branson!

Coming up…Jeff’s birthday and our December activities thus far.