2008 Christmas Letter
We had a wonderful time with my family (sans Travis as he was still on his mission) at Christmas! It was the first time most of my family had met Jack. Susie was visiting when he was born and Nona, my mom, came to visit just a few weeks later and of course Christy had met him as she lives close by. It was especially moving to hand him to my dad and introduce the two Johns to each other. It was the first year we’ve really had any toys that required assembly, so it was neat to see all the “older” kids (as in my siblings and Molly’s boyfriend, Brian, and Rob) work to put together the dollhouse for the girls and the wagon I bought off eBay. The presents were memorable as I bought most of them on eBay and didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the sizes listed. I bought a menorah for Brian and it turned out to be about 2 inches tall – no wonder it was such a good deal! It was solid brass though :) I bought a wagon for the kids that ended up being about 12 inches long and only about 8 inches wide. The dollhouse was a big hit though as I bought that in person and it was actually the right size :) On New Year Day we had Beth’s 2nd birthday party so that all the visiting family could attend (although we missed Molly and Brian and Susie who had all left at that point). We invited our friends, the Footes, over. The Footes live one street over from us and had 3 little girls (they now have 4), two a year and two years older than Megan, one between Beth and Jack. We really love spending time with them! Beth got her very own toddler bed complete with Dora bedding and more furniture for the dollhouse.
January and February passed somewhat uneventfully. We played and laughed and Jack practiced getting up on his hands and knees. On February 28th, Megan came over to me and announced that she had lost a tooth. I didn’t even know she had a loose tooth and thought she was joking, but Megs opened her mouth and sure enough, she was missing one of her bottom middle teeth! She didn’t know where she had lost it though, so we searched the house. We found it stuck in an apple she had been eating – I know it sounds like a cliché, but that’s where it was. :) The tooth fairy left a $1 coin and a letter under her pillow that night. The way the coin ended up there is kind of a neat story. It was fairly late when Megan had lost her tooth and as the tooth fairy was not aware that it was loose to begin with, she was not very prepared. She ran out to the store hoping she could get a $1 coin at the customer service desk if they didn’t have one at the cashier’s counter, but no one had one. It wasn’t a big deal, but it was something that the tooth fairy had wanted to get, so she was disappointed. On the way home, the tooth fairy stopped at Wendy’s to pick up something for Rob as a treat and the cashier at Wendy’s just happened to have one in her drawer!
In March the grass turned green again and we started spending more time outside playing. One Thursday, Megan was home from school with a fever. We noticed flurries of snow starting to fall, so I rushed around the house and dug up winter-type clothes and the kids and I hurried outside to enjoy the snow! Megan and Kylie loved it and chased it and tasted it and made grass-filled snowballs out of it. Beth looked at it, but didn’t want to touch it. It was too messy. Jack was interested in it, but not overly. After a while, we went back inside. Megan and Beth both took naps. Kylie, Jack and I sat at the back door and watched it snow and snow and snow. We ended up with 6 inches of snow! I think it broke 100 year old records or something like that. It just doesn’t snow down here like that. I dug out the snow suits we had from living in RI and improvised for the older girls. Beth stood on the porch and shot me dirty looks for making her put the snow gear on and stand outside. Jack sat in it, but wouldn’t stay upright so I could take a picture of him as he wanted to touch and taste it. I dug out one of our snow shovels and shoveled the driveway. Other people on the street were using rakes and garden shovels. After Rob got home, Megan, Kylie and I built a big snow-lady in the backyard. Megan named her Mary. Kylie decided we needed a boy too, so we built “Ethan”. The day after the snow storm, they cancelled school. It got up to 60 degrees, so everything melted pretty quickly. That was Megan’s favorite part. I had her put on play clothes and Megs announced she was going out to “dig for dinosaurs”. She found a huge mud puddle in the back yard and happily squished and splashed and jumped and stomped for quite a while. After our wonderful freak snowstorm (which Rob decided is his kind of storm – you can play in it and enjoy it and it’s gone the next day), things warmed up again. The kids played in the backyard a lot doing things like eating grass (in Jack’s case) and making “mud soup” (in the girls’ case) in the old turtle sandbox. I got flowers from them every time they went out and loved it :) Megan lost her second tooth. We had our annual Easter Egg Hunt in the backyard. Jack learned to sit on his own. We dyed eggs with the missionaries. March was also the month we joined an organic co-op and started buying raw goats’ milk from a local farm. We’ve slowly changed our eating habits over the past year to the point that we now pretty much only eat organic and all natural foods.
In April, Megan gave a wonderful report on Koalas for school, Jack got his first tooth, and we got hit by the scariest storm we’ve seen since we moved here. It didn’t actually cause anything more than wind damage here and was very fast moving, so it didn’t last very long, but a few miles west of us got hit by hail the size of softballs and several tornados touched down. The missionaries were in the area when the sirens went off, so they ended up at our house :) I got the kids into the tornado closet and Elder Hales helped me to keep them calm by singing kids songs with us. Rob and Elder Larson waited near the door (as the closet is pretty small and you can’t see the TV screen from it and we were watching the storm on the radar). The local channels carried live time radar feed (if that’s what you call it?) with the different parts of the storm in different colors depending on the intensity. I had seen storms with red in the middle move over us, but this one turned purple and then black. It was quite the experience :) Also in April we got a visit from Papa (my dad) as he came to DFW on business. We ended up being able to spend quite a bit of time with him and it was really nice! Last year, he didn’t get to visit at all and we missed being able to see him! I got to have some good talks with him and he spent a lot of time playing with the kids and reading to them. He went to somewhere in the south of TX on the coast for a day and brought us back 5 lbs of gulf shrimp. Kylie and Megan helped us peel them and they were delicious! Shortly after he left (go figure!), Jack started crawling!
May brought Bat Cave forts built by the kids and Rob, Jack standing on his own and starting to cruise around the house while holding onto furniture and trying to climb the slide and my 30th birthday. Rob and Christy (who has the same birthday as I do) took the day off work and Rob watched the kids and sent me out with Christy. We got pedicures, bought new purses, and went to lunch. It was probably my best birthday ever! While talking to Molly about turning 30 and not being upset by it, I made a goal to continue to live my life in such a way that I am never upset by turning another year older :) Rob’s sister, Kate, came to visit a few days after my birthday and she got to meet Jack for the first time! We had Kylie’s birthday party, which we celebrated by inviting the Footes over for swimming in the backyard and spaghetti. Kylie’s favorite present was a little pull-out Disney princess foam couch that she still sleeps on pretty much every night. We also got a visit from my Aunt Rosalie and Uncle Frank Kile. It was short, but it was wonderful to get to see them! On Kylie’s birthday, we went to the Rainforest Café for dinner. The kids had a lot of fun, but Rob and I have decided we are not taking them there again as it gets really expensive with 4 kids! That night, as Rob and I were getting ready for bed, the phone rang. It was Beca Foote, who was in labor with her fourth baby. Garrett, her husband, was out of town on business and had missed the last flight out, so he was driving home as fast as he could, but was still about 8 hours away. Rob stayed home with the kids and I got to stay with Beca, drive her to the hospital, and spend the night with her as she waited for Garrett to get there. She managed not to have the baby until 30 mins after he arrived and I got to stay and they even had me cut the cord! It was such a special experience! The rest of May included Jack getting his first shiner (he pulled a chair over) and Rob getting a second job. Rob started working occasionally at the Vaquero Country Club in their catering department. He usually serves as bartender, which is funny as he doesn’t drink. He had to shave off his goatee for the job, but he wasn’t too sad as he decided it was time for a change anyway.
Megan graduated from Kindergarten at the beginning of June. She loved kindergarten and did so well! Her teacher was wonderful and we were so glad that Meg had such a wonderful year! The week school got out, Jack got his first hair cut and Kylie cut her own hair, resulting in a very short haircut and the addition to her prayers (still included every time) of “please make my hair grow long”. We painted our library chartreuse as the suggestion of Elder Hales, who I think was joking at the time, but it turned out really well! Rob and I have always wanted a library in our house decorated with items from around the world and we finally created it! It is such a haven, although the kids love it too, so it doesn’t stay as clean as I would like, but I’m glad they love to read as much as we do! Kylie and Beth finished up their gymnastics classes, and then we left for Oregon!
None of our kids had ever visited OR and one set of Rob’s grandparents are now living there, as well as his parents, his brother and his wife, his sister Becca (part time – she’s in college), and several members of his extended family. We flew in (and decided NOT to go to HI this coming June with my family as we don’t think it would be worth the flights with the kids), rented a car and drove out to Grandma and Grandpa’s (Rob’s parents) house. I started feeling sick on the flight and by the time we got to the Knowlton’s, I was not doing well at all. I don’t remember much about the first few days – it turned out that I had strep and I got pretty sick before we finally went to the doctor. The kids had a lot of fun playing outside and in (and I think a large portion of the outside ended up being brought in by various children) and spending time with Grandma and Grandpa and Becca. Rob got to help his dad with some chores and I think it actually turned out to be a good thing that I was sick because I think everyone got to spend much more quality time with each other. Rob’s best friend drove up to spend an afternoon with us and we were able to meet up with several other friends of his. Rob got to spend an evening playing pool with most of his group of friends, which was really nice for him. I know he misses them all. After I started feeling better, Grandma, Becca and I took the kids to Cannon Beach. It was Beth and Jack’s first time at a beach. Beth was NOT impressed. We took her shoes off and put her down on the sand and she would lift up one foot and clean it off, then the other, over and over again. When I sat down, she walked gingerly over to me, climbed up on my lap, dusted off her feet, and stayed there. Meg and Kylie, on the other hand, made sand angels, played in a huge hole someone had dug and made sand pies. Jack happily crawled around and ate sand (are you sensing a theme yet in how Jack experiences the world?). The following day, we drove to see Quincy (Rob’s brother) and his wife, Cindy. Q had never met any of the kids as he had been living in China for the last several years. None of us (Rob, the kids and I) had met Cindy yet, so it was wonderful to finally get to meet her and to see Q again! We had a birthday celebration for Q and Grandpa with a Dora theme for the girls to enjoy. The day after our visit with Q and Cindy, we went to the nursing home to visit Great Grandpa and Grandma Knowlton (Rob’s grandparents). It had been about 5 years since we had seen them and it was wonderful to spend time with them again! Jack was the first grandson with the last name of Knowlton, so it was especially neat to get to take a four generation picture of Knowlton males. Jack and Great G’pa had a lot of fun together. G’pa would put his head back and say “AHHHH” then lean forward and say “BOO!” over and over again and Jack cracked up every time. G’ma didn’t seem to realize who we were, but she seemed to enjoy having the kids there. We’re so glad we got to introduce all the kids to them as they had only met Megan. On the way home, we stopped and visited with Rob’s aunt and uncle and most of their children and grandchildren. The kids played in the backyard with their cousins and still talk about how much fun it was. We also got the chance to visit several friends, including a friend of Rob’s from high school and his family and the family that Rob grew up next to, the husband of which served as Rob’s principal for several years. Rob considers them surrogate parents, so it was wonderful to get to introduce our children to them and get to visit with them for a while. You could tell our kids are becoming Texans – they happily spent most of the visit running around the yard squashing ants because ants in TX bite. We spent our last night with Rob’s parents and Becca. Grandma taught Beth and I how to make Knowlton spaghetti sauce. As Rob and I packed everything up the next morning, Grandpa chased the girls around the house, much to their delight. We were so sorry to have to leave! We’ll have to try and get together more often! The rest of June was fairly uneventful, although Jack did his best to spice things up by figuring out how to climb the slide (the top of which is 4 feet off the ground) and learning to climb the stairs for the first time.
Jack figured out how to slide down the slide (after learning how to get to the top of it in July), so he spent his days climbing up, then sliding down, over and over and over again. We didn’t do much for the 4th of July. Christy took the girls to watch the fireworks on the 3rd as I had strep again. I tried natural remedies this time since the antibiotics I got in OR didn’t do the job completely enough to wipe it out and the natural remedies worked much better! Rob worked at the country club on the 4th, so we stayed home and made cookies. Christy and Priscilla and John, friends of ours, came over for dinner. Meg lost her third tooth on the 5th of July and the following week, Beth was officially potty trained!!! Since then, we’ve only had one in diapers, an occurrence that hasn’t happened since Kylie’s birth! Yay! Jack decided he no longer was interested in being fed and that he wanted to feed himself. I’m not convinced that he understands that the food has to go in his mouth instead of being smeared all over his face, head and clothes, but maybe he’s a future Jackson Pollock? :) We had tea parties and played in the pool and on cooler days (when it dropped into the 90’s), we would play on the swings and maybe go to the park to ride bikes. Jack learned to walk, although he’d been getting into everything anyway. Nona came to Dallas for her MK convention and so we got to spend some time with her :) We love having her come visit! Megan turned 6 on the 31st. Rather than have a party, she opted to invite one friend out to lunch and then to a movie. She invited her “BFF” (best friend forever) from kindergarten, Paula. Rob took them to Chili’s and then to see “Wall-E”. Meg got a scooter for her b-day. Rob picked it out and got her a princess one. He told me he knew it wasn’t as grown up as the other scooters, but he still thought of her as his little princess, so he needed to get her that one :)
In August, Jack got his two middle top teeth (he got his incisors first and looked a bit like a baby vampire), Megan, Kylie and Beth finished up their summer gymnastics program, and (drum roll please) . . . Rob graduated with his MBA!!! He finished his final class on August 5th, ending an eleven-year-long journey that started shortly after our marriage when he attended his first semester of college. He worked full-time (sometimes two jobs) the whole time he’s been in school, worked at church, been a wonderful husband, and been a wonderful father. He only took a few years off while I finished my Bachelors. We are so proud of him!!! Christy and I surprised him by decorating his desk with streamers, balloons, posters and candy. On the 13th, Jack turned one! We had a party at home with Christy and her boyfriend, Ron, and the Footes. Jack’s big presents included a ride-on dump truck from Christy and Ron and a set of musical instruments inside a drum from Rob and I. I think it was a bit of a baptism by fire for Ron, for whom this was his first Alico family event and first children’s birthday party since he was a child, as 8 kids age 8 and under, all playing various musical instruments (well I don’t think the baby was technically involved) can be a bit overwhelming! My book club started up again (one of my favorite things in the world) in August and our month ended with Jack getting a mild case of chicken pox (apparently the girls’ vaccinations worked as they didn’t get it :) ) and Megan starting 1st grade. Her teacher this year is Mrs. Foster, who has over 20 years of experience and is a wonderful teacher!
We settled back into our school routine in September. We bought a preschool workbook for Beth and a pre-k one for Kylie and some flash cards and are working on learning letters and numbers and reading and math. Kylie is very good at math and can even answer basic questions about fractions already! We painted and built forts in the playroom and had playdates with friends. The girls started horseback riding lessons at a local farm. They all did really well :) The children’s program for our church was in September. This year, both Megan and Kylie were old enough to be in it. Megan had a very loose tooth and held it the whole time, so we couldn’t understand much of what she said :) Kylie was the first to say her part after a musical interlude, so she said an impromptu solo before saying her part :) It was very cute! It was so weird to sit in the congregation with only two kids! Rob and I looked at each other and said “is this what it used to be like?” Those years seem so long ago.
At the end of September, Rob, I, the kids and Christy and Ron flew to MA (it was the first time Rob and I had been back since moving 3 years before). Travis finished his mission and my mom and dad flew out to ID to bring him home. He didn’t know we were all going to be there (we all went through a lot of trouble to make sure we didn’t let it slip!) and we surprised him at the airport. We had quite a crowd as Molly and Brian and Susan were there as well. It was the first time we had been together as a family for nearly two and a half years as the last time before his left on his mission that we were all together was for Beth’s baby blessing. Nona and Papa (my mom and dad) rented a 15 passenger van (that Christy and I picked up and therefore had to drive) so that all of us could ride in the same vehicle. We only had one empty seat. Any more additions to the family and we’re going to have to rent a tour bus! Travis did an amazing job on his mission and we are so proud of him! We had a lot of fun together. We all went out to dinner as a belated birthday celebration for Susie’s 17th birthday and we drove up to NH to fly in a wind tunnel. Christy is very much into skydiving now and wind tunnels are a really good way to practice falling. Christy rented it for an hour, then an additional 30 mins and everyone except Nona, Kylie and Jack got to fly. The kids watched the first hour, then when we came back for the last 30 mins, Megan and Beth decided they wanted to fly too. We had a bit of a problem finding helmets to fit them, especially Beth, as I’d be willing to bet there aren’t many 2 year olds that go into wind tunnels. Beth’s was actually a bit big for her and the wind blowing against it made it uncomfortable, so she only went in once, but Meg flew twice. My kids are so cool! :) Rob and I took a morning and drove past our RI house and met up with Kate (Rob’s sister) for lunch. We really miss RI and our wonderful little house there, but we know TX is the right place for us for right now. Rob and Ron had to fly home after only a few days, but the rest of us stayed there for an additional week. We got to visit with Kate and my friend Leah, the kids got to ride with Papa on the “tractor” (lawnmower), we watched Sus play soccer, pulled all the plants out of Nona and Papa’s garden to prepare it for winter, visited with my Aunt Kathy, went apple picking and cooked lobsters. We had a huge family dinner with Brian’s family (Brian is Molly’s fiancée) so that we could all meet each other. Nona and Papa hosted a homecoming open house for Travis shortly before we left, so we got to catch up with several other friends at that. We flew back at the beginning of October.
October is pumpkin patch season in TX, so we visited various pumpkin patches several times. We bought pumpkins from a local farm – small ones for the kids to paint and one big one for Rob to carve. Our jack-o-lantern this year was named “Little Jimmy” and, according to Rob, was a boxer. This explained his crooked nose and uneven eyes. The kids got quite attached and were very upset when Little Jimmy started growing what Kylie thought were blueberries (mold) and had to make a trip to visit his mother (as Rob told the kids rather than tell them we threw him away) instead of staying on our front step. Megan got addicted to the High School Musical soundtrack and all of us now have every song memorized. One of the girls from the church youth group, Brittney, sort of adopted our family and spent a lot of time babysitting and helping me out with the kids. It’s really nice to have a part-time teenager! In October I met with Meg’s teacher regarding the results of the tests she had taken (all 1st graders take standardized tests several times a year in TX). Megan maxed out the tests. The first grade tests max out at a fourth grade level. Her teacher said in all her years of teaching, she had never seen a child score at the level that Megan did. Meg’s kindergarten teacher last year asked us if we wanted to have her skip first grade, but as Meg is already one of the youngest in her grade, we were hesitant to have her do that. We were hoping we could work with her teachers, as we did in kindergarten, to make sure she was given work that challenged her without having to take her away from other kids her age. Mrs. Foster pulled Megan and one other girl who also scored unusually well on the tests and created a group of the two of them. They are given different work that allows them to progress at their own pace. She suggested that we have Megan tested for the Gifted and Talented program, which we are in the process of doing. We’ve really lucked out with teachers! The kids decided this year for Halloween they wanted to be the 3 little pigs and the big bad wolf. Jack filled the latter role and the three girls helped me make ears and noses and tails. They turned out really cute! We’ll have to figure out what to do next year.
At the end of October, I ended up with a slipped disk in my back and it really messed my whole back up. I ended up having to go to the chiropractor 3 times a week for treatments for several weeks, then I got to move up to only twice a week (I’m still going twice a week). Due to that, we didn’t do much in November. My friends helped out immensely by watching the kids so I could make my appts without having to bring them along. We are so blessed to have so many good friends! I’ve gained empathy for people who can’t move around like they used to. It’s been really frustrating to not be able to do things that I’m used to doing without help and to have to take a step back and let someone else help. Rob’s been amazing and the kids have helped out a lot too. Thanksgiving was spent at home. Rob worked for a few hours in the afternoon at the country club and then we had dinner together. Christy stopped by for a few minutes to bring us some dishes and to eat a bit of my stuffing, which she really likes :) She and Ron came over a few hours later for leftovers and dessert. It was a really nice Thanksgiving :)
Travis flew down to TX at the beginning of December to spend some time with all of us down here. Although we got to see him in MA when we were up there, it’s nice getting to see him when things aren’t so rushed. He’s working with Rob at the country club and helping me out on days when he doesn’t work. We’ve set up our tree and are anxiously awaiting the arrival of other family members. This year, the whole Alico family, including Brian, will be in TX and Rob’s sister, Becca will be visiting us as well. The kids are counting down the days until everyone gets here!
If I haven’t told you already, this year I started blogging. For those of you interested, the site is www.laneyandrob.blogspot.com. We also both have facebook accounts and post pictures to them regularly (well, I do).
We feel incredibly blessed to have each other and to have all the wonderful blessings we have in our lives – one of which is each of you! We hope you each have a wonderful holiday season!
Love, Rob, Laney, Megan, Kylie, Beth and Jack :)
