If you haven't already gotten our photo card/Christmas newsletter. Um, it's probably not coming. Sorry. But! Now! Here! Tonight! You can get the pictures and Christmas letter part of that mail-out sans the tree-killing and carbon omitting postal services. Super awesome!!
(I like using extra exclamation points in and around Christmas letters because of the David Sedaris short story, Season's Greetings. If Santa has never brought you a copy of Barrel Fever, you need to have a talk with him... OR! get over it, and listen to this story on youtube: part one, part two.)
Alright, alright... the official letter:
Merry Christmas! We hope you have had a happy and fulfilling 2011.
No worries, no one fell off the dock.
When I write these annual Christmas letters I’m conscious of how to convey the fun! celebrations!! of our year!!!! without glossing over… ya know, reality. So, reality: For the first half of 2011 my world smelled like pee. (Merry Christmas!!!) Somehow a button got pushed in Blue, our middle kiddo, and he just went out of control. He began breaking things, sweeping his arms across a shelf to crash its contents to the ground, and peeing on things on purpose. Every day. Multiple times a day. I was going Out. Of. My. Mind. Blue and I started meeting with a psychiatrist, and after many failed efforts (good job dollars, star charts, putting fun things in the toilet to pee on) either our consistency, your prayers, or Blue’s boredom with the whole thing brought us out of it. By the middle of summer things started turning around. PRAISE GOD. (Because you surely didn’t want to read an entire letter about bad behavior; you can watch Super Nanny for that.)
He sure looks cute and normal, doesn't he?
In other, more fun, news: The boys started t-ball/baseball for the first time. Kevin coached Blue’s team and we hosted Blue’s end-of-season party. In March Kaden turned 7 and we celebrated by taking a few friends to see a Disney on Ice show. In May Toby turned 2 and right around his birthday he and I traveled to Chapel Hill for a research study on the brains of kids with Fragile X. Toby continues doing numerous therapies and we’ve added a membership to “My Gym” a kids gym with directed classes for little tykes.
Love those laughs!
In the summer Kaden and Blue went to a VBS and a number of camps, but the best camp, from my perspective, was “Camp Gran and Papa” where they went for a week (with Toby too) so Kevin and I could enjoy a tenth anniversary trip WITHOUT KIDS! We spent one night in New Orleans and then continued on to Montana where we met up with our friends Ryan and Courtney Tucker. We rented a cabin in Red Lodge so we could spend our days hiking around the Bear Tooth Mountains and Yellowstone. We had perfect weather for our hikes, lots of animal sightings but no animal encounters, and a hot tub at our cabin where we watched shooting stars each night. Perfect.
In the fall Kaden started second grade… twice. He returned to the school where he’s been enrolled since we moved to Port St Lucie, but two weeks into the semester we got a letter saying he could move to a school where we’d had him on a waiting list. He’s much closer to home which makes the drop off / pick up routine nicer. Also, he has more church friends at his new school, so we’re pleased with the change.
How can he already be in 2nd grade?!
Blue attends the same school where he went 2 afternoons a week last year, but now he goes every morning as part of the free Voluntary Pre Kindergarten program in the state of Florida. We love his Christian school and we love that the state pays for it!
In October we celebrated the wedding of my oldest niece. Blue and Kaden served as ring bearers. It was a destination wedding to Panama City Beach for the Tennessee bride and groom so all the family made a vacation out of it. We were able to rent a small beach house that the boys are still talking about. (When are we going back to that little gray house with the pool and the Wii?) Unfortunately, while en route to PCB the transmission of our van died. Because it had close to 200k miles we chose to sell it without fixing it. Right now we’re adding to our savings for a down payment on a new van and in the meantime borrowing Kevin’s father’s old car. I begrudgingly became a minivan mom, but now, not two months away from van driving, I sorely miss it!
Kaden just wrapped up spring baseball (two seasons and one camp in, and we’ve seen big improvements!) and is now beginning practice for his first time playing Upward Basketball. On December 1st Blue turned 5. He had a Kung Fu Panda party at a Martial Arts Studio. Blue recently began taking karate at his preschool one day a week. He loves it! (Gotta direct that energy somehow.)
We’ve been through a lot this year watching one of our sons get so off track. It was particularly hard on me because I saw a lot of personal goals go unmet as I poured all of my energy into managing Blue. In September, part of a women’s conference I attended in Orlando, I was able to go to Casting Crowns concert. The lead singer shared about trials he’s been through getting his daughter, adopted from China, healthy. They then went into their song, Praise You In the Storm. I felt like such a whiner! With both Kaden and Blue we knew that even though the adoptions were finalized, their places in our family sealed, that adoption would always be an on-going journey. Blue’s journey hit a bumpy patch (Behaviorally, Blue is underdeveloped and resorts to “primitive behaviors.” Thank you, psychiatrist.) and where was my praise? (1 Thess 5:18 Give thanks in ALL circumstances.) It’s easier now that we’ve gone on two restorative trips and Blue has improved, but I hope to be better equipped no matter what our family faces in 2012.
And if, between all that news and the family blog, you still haven’t gotten enough Stratton news, we have a guest bedroom! Come visit! Merry Christmas! Happy 2012!! Love!!! Faydra!!!! (and the boys!)
Comments