It's Christmas Time!

We only send out a Christmas letter to our friends and family who are far away, but this year I decided to post it on my blog as well. Nothing terribly new or exciting here, but it has been a while since I posted anything so I cheated :). I hope you enjoy it and that everyone has an exceptional Christmas and a New Year full of wonderful new adventures.

Family and Friends

Didn’t we just do this? I have had such a hard time getting this letter written, in part because I feel like I just finished last year’s letter. After all of our changes last year this year has seemed pretty uneventful, but in these times we could not be more grateful for uneventful! Rich is still wholesaling Mutual Funds in North Carolina and training for various running or biking races in his “spare” time. After 13 years of marriage and watching him get up day after day to exercise, he is finally starting to rub off on me. I’m in no shape to run a marathon, but am working towards getting to the end of our street without losing a lung and then who knows where I’ll go! This year our family travels took us to family in Boston and Omaha, as well as a relaxing trip to Aruba for spring break and an awesome trip with some dear friends to Disney World in the fall.

Both Rich and I have enjoyed every stage of our kid's lives, so far, but we agree that we would freeze where we are right now. We are down to one booster seat in the car after a decade of car seats. We no longer order our kids food for them in a restaurant or feel like we have to ride our bikes with them around the block. It is bittersweet, but so worth the wait. What a joy to watch these little people become independent, responsible kids.

Gwen turned 10, yes you read that right - 10! She mourned momentarily the fact that she will never be single digit age again and then gladly joined the ranks of the double digits. Along with 10 came pierced ears and a new pet. Freddy, the smelly, but cute hamster, joined our family a few weeks ago and they are inseparable. Gwen's social calendar is mind-boggling. I think she considers school merely the tool that allows her to spend 7 straight hours with her friends. If only it weren't for that pesky work... She continues to be an absolute joy and we are so proud of the beautiful young lady, both inside and out, that she is becoming right before our eyes.

When Jack turned 8 he told us he was so glad to turn 8 since he prefers being an even number rather than odd – Carpe Diem Son! What a funny kid! This year he is in the 2nd grade and continues to make it look easy. He is still playing soccer and we think this was the year that it became more than a means to a snack at the end. He prefers being a forward, but as long as he can stay focused on the game at hand and not the one going on next to his, he’s a pretty good defender as well. He still LOVES LEGO’s and is focused on his future employment goals of becoming a LEGO designer or working in the toy section at Target. Jack is an awesome kid and so much fun to converse and hang with .

Big man Luke turned 5 in May. I went through a momentary sense of loss whenI lost my partner in crime to Transitional Kindergarten (TK) this year. Nodoubt Luke was socially ready for Kindergarten at birth, but we decided that an extra year of “prep” would probably be good for all of us. Being in this sweet class of 10 has really boosted his academic confidence and all of us are so happy we decided to wait. Luke is our “life embracer”. He literally lives, laughs and loves! He adores his siblings and his independence equally. He started soccer and karate this year. He proudly wears his little white belt whenever he can. What a fantastic little boy!

As we remember with awe the sacrifice that our Heavenly Father made for us, we hope this beautiful season that celebrates His son’s birth is one of both joy and peace for each of you.

All Our Love,

The Callinan’s

Slipping through my fingers...

It has happened! Actually it happened on Tuesday. After 10 years of having someone pal around with me on errands and follow me around the house, I am all alone. Gwen & Jack started school on August 20th and Luke started his first full day on September 9. I should have been celebrating, in fact I thought I would be leaping for joy! I had "me" time to look forward to EVERYDAY from 8:15 - 2:30! But, for some reason I wasn't. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't crying, and I wasn't depressed. I guess I was a little melancholy and frankly I didn't know what to do with myself.

It is amazing. For almost 10 years I kept thinking to myself, "Won't it be great when I can just run in and grab toilet paper at Target without having to unbuckle someone?" or "I can't wait until I can clean a room and it will stay clean for more than 5 minutes before someone comes in and messes it up!" Now, here I was with my "wish" coming true, and I didn't know what to do.

Rich has been able to work from home for most of our children's lives, so he has never questioned what it was I did all day long or given me a hard time for not having the dishes done when he got home. In fact, quite the opposite. When we were just getting our feet wet in this parenting adventure, we moved away from our families to Charlotte, where we knew almost no one and certainly no one we felt we could leave our kids with. Our "dates" during those months consisted of smoothies from "Smoothie King" in his office, during nap time :). Ironically on this particular Tuesday, Rich was working from home and I think he could tell something was up, because I was really quiet. Around 11:00, after watching me wander aimlessly from room to room, he said "Can I take you to lunch?". "YES!" What a great guy! With our smoothie dates behind us, he took me out for Chinese food and we proceeded to do the very thing that I had "dreamed" of doing when I had 3 kids under 4 years and I didn't know which way was up. We had a great lunch, fun conversation and before I knew it, it was time to pick Luke up :).

The next day and the days since have not been as uneventful and I am certainly finding many ways to fill all of the this new found time (and loving it :), but it did make me stop and think. The last 10 years have gone by so fast. It is almost impossible for me to wrap my mind around it! My "babies" are hardly that anymore, the LONG infant days are a speck in my rear view mirror and my kids seem to be slipping through my fingers no matter how much I try to hold onto them. Honestly, they are not mine for keeping. Rich and I were chosen by God to meet the earthly needs of these precious kids for a short time and to raise them to honor Him. What a privilege and how blessed I am.

Now I'm off to enjoy some "me" time :)!

Stop and Smell the Roses...

We got news about a week and a half ago that one of Luke's little WEE school buddies was diagnosed with Leukemia.  I have always been aware of the disease and was connected to it distantly through "friends of friends" or "someone's relative", but this was the first time as a mother that I was this close to it.  I don't know Rachel and her family well, but she and Luke have been classmates for the last 2 years, so I have heard many "Rachel" stories through out that time.  One of his sweet teachers sent me an email letting me know and within about 24 hours we were told she could have little visitors, in fact WANTED little visitors.  I was pretty vague with Luke, just explaining that she was sick and had to be in the hospital.  He wanted to go see her, so we called up his other buddy Lily and her mom and I, along with the 2 kids headed uptown to visit Rachel at Levine Children's Hospital.  

It is so surreal to walk into that beautiful building.  Everyone we saw from the front desk receptionist, to the gift shop worker, to the nurse outside her room was happy, warm and all about the kids (not just the sick one's, but the well ones too!)  Luke and Lily each got to wear a sticker badge and pick out a gift for Rachel at the gift shop.  Then we headed up to her room.

I had Luke go in first and all I heard was a loud "LUKE!" from Rachel.  She was a little feverish, so she didn't have much energy, but she still looked very happy to have someone her size visiting.  Luke and Lily walked up to her and gave her their gifts and sat down next to her and they watched cartoons together for the next 20 minutes or so, while the adults chatted.   After a while we headed out and each of the kids said good bye.  I don't think any of the kids really realized how sick Rachel was, but you know what, it didn't matter.  They had a great time playing with her toys and watching cartoons and doing "kid stuff" and for a little while Rachel got to have a little bit of normal amidst the wires and doctors and medicine.

In the week since, we have learned that Rachel is responding well to her first rounds of treatment and that she gets to be at home for now.  Her mom said she looks more like her old self.  It is a "stop and smell the roses" moment when you hear about a child that is sick, especially when you know them personally.  If you read this please pray for Rachel, for the wisdom of her doctors and for quick and pain free healing.  We serve the great physician and He is capable of total healing.  I am so grateful for 3 healthy, happy kids and don't know what tomorrow holds, but will continue to be thankful for today.

Season Finale!

Jack played basketball this winter with Upward Basketball through our church.  Basketball is NOT his first love.  If basketball involved LEGO's or Star Wars characters it would probably quickly become his favorite, but alas it does not.  Last season was certainly a "learning" season and this year was basically that as well, but he was blessed this year with some of the most patient coaches I have ever seen.  Not only did he learn the basic fundamentals and seem to improve from week to week, but they also did a phenomenal job of building up his confidence and allowing each of the boys to see Christ reflected in their actions and words.  He played with a sweet and frankly talented group of little boys who had no problem passing the ball to each other and "laying off" to allow weaker teammates or even the other team score when they could have run away with it.  

Aside from watching Jack dribble "left handed" and his surprise when he made a shot, my favorite thing at the games was the opening prayer.  It is truly a "goose bump" moment when you see 40 kids in

a circle and then when asked who wants to pray, at least half of their hands go up.  I imagine everyone in heaven stopping whatever it is they do to observe such a precious sight.  Every week tears would well up in my eyes.  My favorite prayer came the last week when one little boy raised his hand and prayed the following: "Dear Jesus Help us play safe and score lots of points. Amen"  Oh how our heavenly father must love these prayers!  He doesn't need fluffy words or lofty lines, but just to simply hear what is on our hearts.  So many adults shy away from public prayer or are afraid they might "say the wrong thing".  I honestly don't think our heavenly father cares HOW we say it, but THAT we say it.  It's no wonder Jesus loved to have children around during his ministry on earth.  I can think of no greater example of complete and utter honesty and trust than in the prayers of children.  

"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."  Matthew 19:14

Lou Gehrig

Jack had his first, but certainly not his last, "presentation" of his school career yesterday.  He had to choose a great American, research it, write a report and then do a short 2 minute presentation.  The teachers encouraged them to dress up as well, but that was optional - I didn't tell him that :).

After looking over the list he narrowed it down to George W. Bush and Lou Gehrig.  2 extremes, but is was his choice.  He didn't really know much about Lou Gehrig other than that he was a baseball player and frankly he has been obsessed with George W. Bush so that was 

a no brainer.  In the end he decided to go with Lou Gehrig.  We did all of the research and he wrote out his report (he was excited to find that Mr. Gehrig both threw and batted LEFT handed just like him!).  As a side note, what a great guy Lou Gehrig was.  Were it not for Babe Ruth it is likely Lou Gehrig would have gone down as the greatest hitter the Yankees had seen until Mickey Mantle came along.  Not to mention that he held the Major League record for "most consecutive games played" until Cal Ripken broke the record during the 90's.  He played even though the pain of his illness was so bad he would double over in pain.  He didn't want to let any of his teammates down.  But I digress... well then it came time to come up with his costume.  Well, we have enough Boston Red Sox stuff to outfit a small army, but NOTHING owned by us with a New York Yankees emblem has ever crossed the thresh-hold of our home and I refused to buy a NY Yankees baseball hat just for the report, so we got creative...

We found the logo on line and printed it, cut it out and glued it to a piece of navy paper.  Then we taped it OVER the B on his Red Sox hat...  Yeah, we are pretty sure the baseball gods were not happy about that one.  It turned out pretty good, but every Red Sox fan we have told this story too kind of gets that look on their face like "I can't believe you would desecrate a Boston hat like that" or "Great now the curse is going to start all over again" :).  

That all remains to be seen, but he did get an A and I was VERY proud of all the work he put into it.  Go Jack!

Tubing!

Yesterday, we drove up to Boone, NC and went tubing!  We were so excited.  We gathered up our gear (no easy task when you aren't used to snowy conditions) and loaded it, along with the kids, into the car.  The drive was just over 2 hours and we needed to be there by about 11:40 to meet our group for our 12:00 time slot.  We went with Jack & Rich's YGuide tribe, but since several of the members have sisters in Gwen's tribe it sort of turned into a combined tribe outing.

As we left our neighborhood around 8:30 the temperature registered at about 47 degrees, a little chilly, but it was early.  As we drove higher into the mountains the gauge started dropping degree by degree until we finally reached Boone when it registered about 29 degrees - cold!  Well once we entered Boone we realized we needed to drive "up" the mountain to the tubing place.  So we maneuvered our way up the winding road that took us up another several hundred feet and then parked our car - temperature 18 degrees.  It was snowing, which should have been my first hint.  The snow was blowing, which should have been my second hint.  Take a hint?  Not me!  No, no, I got out of the car without a coat and proceeded to stand outside and pull stuff out of the bag for the kids to get "dressed" for the snow.  About 2 minutes into it I couldn't feel my fingers anymore.  For Pete's sake this is North Carolina - it doesn't get this cold!! (except in the mountains - I forgot)  The kids got ready in the car and we all headed down to the "lodge".  By the time I reached the "lodge" (small building that had heat, food and not much else) and trust me that was by the skin of my teeth... I had tears pouring down my face from the wind and I think I even had a wind burn.  I found my friend Michele and said to her "I have lived in some of the coldest parts of the country; Minnesota, Boston, Iowa and I have skied in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Colorado and I can tell you without a doubt I have never been as miserably cold as I am at this very minute".  She laughed her head off!  All I could think about was the 2 hours I had committed to tubing with the kids and wondered if any of us were dressed warm enough.

The kids were fired up and soooo excited, so Rich picked up the tickets and our group guide gave us a few instructions, then we went outside to hear a few more instructions.  Needless to say once we got outside I couldn't even concentrate on whatever it was the guy was saying.  The only thing I heard him say was, "Oh, by the way the wind is blowing at 25 - 30 miles an hour, the temperature is 17 degrees and the wind chill is -2".  At that point I flicked the frozen wind induced tears off my face and headed toward the pile of tubes.  I just kept saying "it's for the kids, it's for the kids..."  

Everybody had their own tube except Luke, he had to ride with me, so we all headed down the mountain and then the dreaded "ride" back up.  Ride is in quotes because we were going against the wind on the "magic carpet" so I'm not so sure I wouldn't have rather just stayed at the bottom and curled up into a ball and died right there.  BUT I was with Luke - fearless Luke.  "Come on Mom!  Can't we run up the magic carpet?  Why is it so slow?  Can I go by myself?  Can we go down the fast ones?"  I couldn't even answer the first question, my lips were frozen.  Thankfully Jack needed a little rest so I quickly volunteered to go with him and enjoyed a yummy hot chocolate and Jack's company.  Soon after I was joined by the other 3 in our posse and several others from our group.  After about 5 minutes it became clear that Gwen was turning green - we aren't sure why, but she had to stay in for the rest of the time (bummer, hee hee).  The boys? They headed right back out and I didn't see them again for another hour and even then Luke didn't understand why we had to leave (frankly if I hadn't birthed that child I wouldn't believe he was mine - I HATE being cold, he LOVES it!).  After a while Gwen recovered too, but didn't want to head back out.

Soon after we headed back home.  Fun times - a little cold, but absolutely FUN!  Although next time I will do a better job of checking the wind chill and temps.  

"Look Mom, 2 wheels!"

Yesterday, on a whim, we decided that Jack's bike was getting too small for him so he and Rich went out on a shopping trip.  Oddly, Rich doesn't think bikes should be reserved for holidays.  He has this philosophy that when a kid is ready for the next size up you should go out then and get it.  I guess I agree with him, but bikes were the "big gift" when we were kids.  I guess if we waited though, Jack would be riding his bike and his knees would be hitting his chin all summer long.  So, they went out yesterday.  After nearly an hour they decided on a blue bike, with "hand brakes!", and "a cool shock".  He MOTORED all over the street, while his little brother tried to keep up on his 4 wheeled bike.  They don't move nearly as fast as the 2 wheelers, so Luke decided he wanted the training wheels off. 

Hmmm... I guess I wasn't prepared for that.  I kept saying "but", but Luke wasn't buying any of my "buts".  So his dad took off the training wheels and within about 30 seconds he was off.  He didn't even look back.  It was as if he never needed them in the first place!  So, I checked training wheels of my list of "things that still prove I have a little one around" and added 

another item to my mental list of "things I will inevitably worry about".  Minute by minute, second by second it is becoming more and more evident that my baby, isn't much of a baby anymore.  

Thankfully he still loves a daily snuggle and this morning on our way to a play date with his friend Lily, he looked at me and said "i don't know what I would do without you mommy".  This is what I always say to him, but it was the first time he has ever said it to me.  After I choked down the lump in my throat, I said "me too, buddy".  It sort of made up for his little bout of independence yesterday :).  

Miracles

I have a bad habit of listening to talk radio.  I call it a bad habit because after I am done I am so angry about whatever topic is being discussed that it puts me in a bad mood for a while.  In one day yesterday, the senate sat a new senator from Illinois that was appointed by one of the most corrupt governors; then that same senate approved another $300+ billion in bailout money when they can't even account for the last $300+ billion that they gave away and to top it all off one of the biggest US banks in America asked for MORE money.  Just when you think it can't get any worse - a plane crash.  Not just any plane crash, but a plane that was going from NYC to Charlotte.  Any number of people I love could have or should have been on that flight.  Instantly nothing else in "major news" mattered.  I was glued, with tears in my eyes and goosebumps on my arms, to the television.  

As I watched I listened to the newscasters describe a "near perfect" water landing... 155 people on board, all accounted for... Ferry boats at the scene within minutes... a pilot who specialized in training others in emergency landings... "Miraculous".  I was stunned, amazed, grateful.  I couldn't help but think how perfectly this was all playing out, how someone greater than all of this was in absolute control.  What a slap in the face!  How dare I worry about squandered bailout money and corrupt government - my God is bigger than that!  He knows where every penny is, He knows the hearts of men and He can land a crippled plane in the Hudson River with 0 fatalities.  My favorite scripture verse is Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you" declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  He knows and knew exactly what was happening and knew exactly which pilots to put on board that flight.  Thankfully He knows what tomorrow will bring, so I can stop ranting and raving about injustices in the world.  I will try to remember I might not be able to change the world, but I can change my attitude about the world I have been placed in.  I serve the creator, how could I question Him?