Has It Really Been 10 Years?

Well, we had a big weekend.  I’ve probably mentioned this before, but we took short trips this year to celebrate the kids’ birthdays, in lieu of parties, which were just too much for me with Jeremy’s arrival this year.  This may seem a bit weird, but taking a trip is much less stressful for me than planning and hosting a party!

Charlotte, who is an amusement park junkie, asked to go to Six Flags in St. Louis for her tenth birthday celebration.  We decided to make a weekend of it, drove up on Friday night, and came back on Sunday night.  But we also did birthday activities on both ends of the trip too!

Charlotte asked if she could go to Build-a-Bear Workshop and pick out ANOTHER stuffed animal.  (Charlotte is also a stuffed animal junkie.  She has more than 10 Webkinz, most of which she has purchased herself, in addition to other stuffed animals from all over the place.)  So, the Wednesday before her birthday, we headed to the mall, and she picked out Scooter, the scuba-diving dog.

 

When we got back into town from St. Louis, our first stop was the Pugh house to pick up the birthday cake that my friend Saundi had made for Charlotte.  Charlotte is wild about Saundi’s cakes, and Saundi offered to make her one as a birthday gift.  Charlotte requested a basketball…look how cute this is!

 

We ate Charlotte’s requested birthday meal of chicken sandwiches, french fries, and strawberries, and then Charlotte opened her gifts:

A Nerf gun from Elijah (yes, she asked for this)…

 

…some books and Wii games from us…

 

…and some Legos from Nana and Papa.

Between the stuffed dog, the trip, and the gifts, our girl cleaned up!

After gifts, Charlotte blew out her candles, and we ate cake.

It’s amazing that we have a child in double digits.  It hardly seems possible that it’s been ten years since Charlotte made us parents!  It’s been such a pleasure and privilege to have her in our family.  Wow!

Here are Jeremy and Elijah enjoying Charlotte’s birthday.

 

I’ll tell you about our trip next time and end with a photo of my bookends…ten years apart!

Have a good one!

Waiting for the “Vacation” Part of Summer to Start

Well, I may be overstating this a bit, but holy smokes!  I think that this past week was busier than a typical week during the school year.  If I could have just thrown a few lessons in there, the craziness would have been complete.

Oh, well.  That’s a lousy excuse for not blogging for two weeks, so here goes with our latest happenings.

The kids both had athletic camps this past week.  Elijah went to soccer camp from 10:30-12:15, and Charlotte had tennis camp from 1:00-2:30.  At first glance, this would seem to work out OK, since both camps were just up the road at Metamora Township High School.  In reality, this schedule was almost impossible if anybody actually wanted to eat lunch.

Fortunately, one of our neighbors was also attending the tennis camp, so I got to leach on to a carpool situation, which saved the day.  Because there were five girls in and out of the carpool on various days, I only ended up driving once.  Pretty good for me.

So, how it worked…I ran Elijah up to soccer camp in the morning, leaving Charlotte at home to eat breakfast, get dressed, and watch the baby for me.  I came back, made sure that she was ready, and reminded her to eat lunch.  Then, I loaded the baby into the car around noon, told her to be at the neighbor’s house by 12:30, and ran back to get Elijah, whose camp long every single day.  I arrived home after Charlotte had already left, at which time Elijah and I ate lunch.

I had tennis camp pickup one day; since the baby was sleeping, I left Elijah home with him and let my neighbor know the situation.  (She had volunteered to watch them both while I drove, since her daughter was also in the carpool.)  Craziness.

On Thursday, both kids wanted me to watch their camps, so Charlotte and Jeremy came to soccer camp.  Here is Elijah having a good time there.  Yep, he’s crawling while pushing the soccer ball with his head…not entirely sure what skill this is honing.

 

Toward the end, I ran to Subway to grab lunch for us, which Charlotte ate right away so it could settle before tennis camp and which Elijah ate when he finished up. 

About ten minutes before tennis camp started, Charlotte needed a bathroom, so I had to run her up the road to the Metamora library.  We squeaked back right before camp started.  Here she is, practicing her tennis skills.

The camps ran Monday through Thursday, with Friday as a rain make-up day.  Fortunately, neither camp had to use it.  Both kids really enjoyed themselves, so it made the craziness worth it.  Here is Jeremy, hanging out at soccer and tennis camp.  Poor kid.  I think he’s spent more time in his car seat and stroller this week than anywhere else!

 

Next week brings basketball camp for our girl.  We’re in a carpool with the neighbor for that, too, so hopefully that’ll be a little calmer!

Also thrown in this week were tae kwon do lessons.  I had originally planned to take this week off since the kids were doing other stuff.  But they are testing for their purple belts tomorrow, so missing class wasn’t an option.  The classes they took fell right during Jeremy’s nap, and he had a bit of trouble sleeping through of the “ki yahs!”

Oh, well!

Today, we went to one of local pools for a little while, and Jeremy wore his swim trunks and got in the baby pool for the first time.  (Why didn’t anyone warn me how EXPENSIVE swim diapers are now?!  I think they’ve gone up about three or four dollars a package since Elijah needed them!)  Jeremy kept his usual stoic expression the whole time, even when the chilly water hit his feet.  He actually loves the water, but I was surprised that he didn’t react.  He was too cute!

In other Jeremy news, we’ve hit that all-important milestone:  he’s slept for eight plus hours for two nights now!  They weren’t consecutive; the one in between had me getting up with him and helping him get back to sleep, mostly to show him that he didn’t need to eat at night.  Lest this sounds cruel, he did go back to sleep each time!  I would have fed him had he fussed to eat, but he didn’t.  We’ll see how he does tonight.

The very strange thing about  this whole sleeping-through-the-night business…Jeremy never wakes up hungry in the morning, whether it’s been four hours since his last meal or eight.  Weird.

And that’s what’s happening at Chez Wilkes.  Hope that all is well at your place!

Exciting Times

Well, we’ve had an eventful few days. They started with a festival and ended with us taking shelter in our basement for an hour or so as tornadoes whipped through our area.

Good times, good times.

The nearby town of Washington has a Cherry Festival every year in June, and we took part in the excitement for the first time since we’ve lived here. It runs from Wednesday evening to Saturday evening and boasts carnival rides, food booths, a petting zoo, free concerts and entertainment, a family bike ride, and a 5K race. Thursday was one of two armband nights for the rides, so, after ascertaining that the weather would be good, I bought the kids armbands in advance (saving us $5 apiece), and we joined some friends at the festival.

It was PACKED. And my understanding is that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Charlotte and her friend Anna wanted to ride all of the scariest, most exciting rides, so they stood in very long lines. Elijah joined them eventually, and I think that Charlotte rode five rides before we ran out of time. Elijah rode a few more, as the kiddie rides were not as crowded, but he’s as much of an adrenaline junkie as Charlotte is, so those didn’t last very long for him.

Both kids and Anna went into the petting zoo, which boasted an alpaca, a donkey, goats, a calf, chickens, an enormous rabbit, and a miniature potbelly pig. Additional potbelly piglets were for sale in separate cage, and they were about the cutest things in the world.

Jeremy hung out in the Snugli for most of the evening, although I ended up taking him to the car about 30 minutes before Jeff and the other two kids came with a funnel cake. Jeremy enjoyed the flashing lights, but, after three hours of them with only a brief nap, he was done.

Of course, Charlotte and Elijah both had a blast.

On Saturday morning, Charlotte and Jeff ran their first 5K ever at the Cherry Festival. The weather was drizzly, but that’s preferable to beating-down sun! Our friends, the Pughs, live along the race course and close to the starting line, so we went there at 7:00 a.m. and then headed out to watch and cheer on Charlotte, Jeff, and the rest of the kids’ running group with whom Charlotte and Jeff had been training.

After the runners passed us here, we hoofed it over to the finish line to watch from there. The clock was around 25 minutes, so we were all chit-chatting and not paying much attention to the finishers. I figured that Charlotte might be crossing the line around 28 or 29 minutes, given her training runs. Suddenly, my friend Saundi said, “Here comes Charlotte!”

I almost missed getting her picture.

Charlotte posted a time of 26:23…unbelievable! After Jeff finished, he started watching the times that were posted and saw that Charlotte had finished second in the 10 and under girls’ age group! We stuck around for the awards ceremony, and here is Charlotte getting her medal and showing it off.

Here are the five kids from the running group who participated in this race. They all did a fantastic job.

Since race entry included a pancake and sausage breakfast hosted by the Rotary Club, we all headed there next and enjoyed that before the rain drove us all home!

However, this is not the end of this story, thrilled as we all were by Charlotte’s second place finish. The rain stopped for the afternoon, and Charlotte headed to a Sunday school farewell picnic for the fifth graders in her class who will be moving up to the youth group. Toward evening, Jeff got online to check the official results of the race and discovered that Charlotte had NOT placed second, as was announced at the awards ceremony, but had actually placed FIRST!

I hadn’t thought that I had seen any other little girls finish before Charlotte, but I also hadn’t been paying that close of attention. We all thought it was a little weird that the first place finisher hadn’t stuck around for her award, but stranger things have happened.

We’re not sure exactly what happened. The girl whom they had ranked first at the end of the race actually finished at around 33 minutes and wasn’t even in the top three. We’re guessing there must have been a computer glitch or a misassigned electronic shoe tag. Who knows?

In any case, Charlotte finished first! So far, she has run two races and has won both of them for her age group and gender. I guess I need to quit telling her not to expect to win every race she runs! Hopefully, we can help her avoid a big head!

Around the kids’ bedtime on Saturday evening, the village weather siren went off, which means that tornadoes had been spotted nearby and that we needed to seek shelter immediately. Jeff grabbed the guinea pigs, I grabbed the baby and his paraphernalia, and the kids grabbed their library books, and we hustled into the basement.

We turned on the TV, and, sure enough, some really bad storms were moving through the area. Before the evening was finished, the downtown area of Elmwood, which is west of Peoria, had been leveled. Charlotte’s friend Anna, who was with us at the Cherry Festival on Thursday, lives there. Her dad is a pastor at our church. Fortunately, their home had minimal damage, but buildings half a block away were totally destroyed. Miraculously, no one was injured, unlike in Ohio later that evening.

Check out this YouTube video. This was the twister that went into Elmwood.

Elmwood Tornado

A tornado went straight up the highway that is about a quarter of a mile from our house, but we only had lightning, thunder, and rain. It was kind of scary, though.

And that’s our weekend. We were glad to spend Sunday relaxing and recovering!

And as I would be remiss not to include Jeremy in this post…here he is, enjoying some tummy time.

Have a good one!

A Few Photos

Because I haven’t posted any photos in awhile, here you go!

Elijah had his last soccer game on May 22.  Here is a picture of him in action and a rather motley team photo.  The league didn’t take team photos of the spring league, so I tried to take one myself, with rather comical results before the last game.

 

Oh, well.

Each child got a medal for participating, and here is Elijah with his.

And here are a few photos of our very own Mr. Personality.

 

And in case you missed his rooster hair…

And, finally, my three babies.  (It still seems a bit weird to say “three.”)

Have a great day!

Household Happenings

Jeremy got his first round of vaccinations today!  Of course, this means that he is already two months old, which doesn’t seem possible.  I tried to prepare him a bit by giving him a dose of infants’ ibuprofen, but he spat most of that out and glared at me dolefully.

The poor little guy got three shots and one oral vaccination this morning at the Woodford County Health Department.  He turned really red and screamed, but that only lasted about 10 seconds.  The nurse put band aids on the needle sites, I bundled Jeremy back into his car seat, and he was asleep before we got back the McDonald’s, where I had promised the older two we could catch a late breakfast.

“Poor Jeremy,” Charlotte told him.  “If you were a little older, you could ice cream after your shots.  But you’re not, so you don’t.”

Very comforting words!  And like the promise of ice cream made either Charlotte or Elijah behave any better during shots!  I distinctly remember Elijah kicking the poor nurse who tried to stick him.  When I reminded of him of that, he indignantly told me, “Well, Charlotte did the same thing!”

Sigh.  At least this one won’t remember any of this.

Jeremy actually slept seven hours two nights in a row this past weekend.  He hasn’t done it since, but I think there’s a light at the end of the getting-up-at-night tunnel.  When he does wake up, it’s only once a night and it’s always because he’s hungry.  I feed him, and he goes right back to sleep.   I can’t complain about mixed-up days and nights, for sure.

Charlotte and Elijah have been enjoying their neighborhood friends being out of school.  They hang around inside in the morning to play their thirty minutes each of electronics and then disappear outside until Jeff gets home.  Most of the time, they and several other kids are in our yard, so that’s kind of nice.  They grow up too fast!

Charlotte has her first 5K race this Saturday at the Cherry Festival in nearby Washington.  After winning the one-mile fun run a few weeks back, she kind of slacked off in her training!  We’ll see how she does.

I actually started running again a couple of weeks ago and managed a 5K myself this past Monday.  It’s been a bit hard getting back in the saddle, but I’m tired of being tired and of my clothes not fitting quite right, so it’s time to do SOMETHING.  So, we’ll see how I do, too!

We celebrated Memorial Day by inviting three other families over for a cookout.  The kids ran around the yard in their bathing suits with water guns while the adults enjoyed the air-conditioning inside the house.  The heat and humidity have really been something else the last few weeks, although my Mississippi friends would probably find it pleasant!  It was a fun way to celebrate the holiday and one of the first times we’ve had company since our house renovation started back in August. 

And that’s what’s been going on here!  Hope that you all are enjoying your summer.