Monday, December 13, 2010

The annual Christmas letter

how many of you do these? I love getting them in the mail. This year I struggled to write ours and almost omitted them from the envelope but I got it done and folded and sent....

so, here it is!!


Here we go again! The end of another year is almost upon us. As we get older it seems the years pass quicker and I don’t think I like it. As I sit and try to think of the “best of from 2010” I find myself struggling. How can that be with 5 kids? Yes, I did say 5.

This year we added the 5th and final child to our clan. Ryleigh Grace was born on July 15th, via c-section. I guess she wanted to make sure that I remembered her birth over the others. She came into this world on a very special date, what would have been my Nanny and Papa’s wedding anniversary. Ryleigh has stolen the hearts of her two oldest brothers but not so much the heart of her older sister.

Kennedi is now 2 (Aug). She loves her baby sister to pieces, or maybe it’s that she wants her sister to be in pieces. It only took Kennedi about 3 weeks to pick Ryleigh up while I was making dinner and drop her on the ground. No need to call DFACS, we tried but they brought her back. Ok, I am just kidding about the DFACS part. Kennedi is great to her baby sister most days and even shares with her. Just a few weeks ago I saw that Ryleigh had a lot of black crumbs on her mouth. It looked like she enjoyed part of Kennedi’s Oreo cookie! Kennedi goes to a Children’s Morning Out program 2 times a week for 4 hours and loves it. Hard to believe that she will be in Pre-K 3 next year! Hopefully in next year’s letter I will be able to talk about her 1st soccer experience.

Dakota is now 7 and in the 1st grade. This past spring he played t-ball and now he is giving boy scouts a shot. Being 3 hours away it’s hard for Chris to make it to all of his games but he does get down to see a few games during each season. Chris recently watched Dakota climb the ropes at one of his Boy Scout events. Seems like scouting is taking up a lot of his time and he sounds like he is enjoying all the camping.

Avery is now in his last year in middle school! We can’t wait for him to be done and move onto high school. It will be wonderful having both boys in the same school once again. Avery does great in school when he put his mind to it. I just wish he would do that all the time. One place where his head is always where it should be is on the lacrosse field. The kid is a beast! He is still on the small side but that doesn’t matter to him. He is proof that size really doesn’t matter in sports. He is looking forward to the possibility of playing on the high schools JV team in the spring (as an 8th grader). He has also taken an interest in hunting and recently passed his Hunter Safety test. Chris loves that but I am still not sure. I don’t think I am ready to replace the meet in my freezer with deer, turkey, squirrel or whatever else is available to shoot.

Conner is in 10th grade and turned 16 in November. I now feel VERY short standing next to him. He is about 6 feet tall and loves to stand next to some of his cousins. The little kid is now taller than a few of them. School is starting to get a little tougher for him. This year he is taking his 1st two AP classes. He likes the idea of having all 11th grade classes this coming spring. Conner recently got his driver’s license and a car. Now that he has both of those, he is never home. I love that he can get himself home from practice but do not like that idea of him being gone all the time. I only have 2 more years of before he goes to college, you would think that he would want to be home every waking minute until then. Conner is back to having his sweet smile. He is scheduled to get his braces off in early December. He has been looking forward to this day for about 2 ½ years and is thrilled that is has finally arrived. This past spring he played baseball on the 9th grade team. He is now getting back into the swing of things with baseball conditioning.

Chris and I are doing well. Chris is still working all the time and we can’t wait until he can cut back a little. Maybe then all the items on the “honey-do” list will get done or maybe just get longer. I am still at home with the kids and most days it’s great. I still stay very busy driving the kids everywhere they need to go and look forward to bedtime when I get a chance to relax.

I think that wraps up most of the big things for 2010. We hope that you all have had a wonderful 2010 and hope your family has a happy and healthy 2011.

No comments: