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!
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