Christmas 2022

 A few Christmas memories from this year:

• No covid this year, but Annie, Eddie, and Mary were all down with the flu for the first few days of break. It was a little sad, but provided a couple of quiet days to rest, regroup, and start to prepare for Christmas at the beginning of break.
• We had some weather! A snow and wind storm came in Thursday afternoon (Christmas was Sunday) and left the roads somewhere between iffy and treacherous through Tuesday! Knowing it was coming, we invited Pam to come Wednesday and stay through Christmas. It was a fun adventure (you can ask Pam for her perspective!) to have a guest for a week. And I love a good winter storm, so I was happy to be snowed in.
• The kids only got a couple of presents this year, because we're going to Disney!! The kids found out Christmas morning that our travel is booked to drive to Florida for a couple of days in Disney World and a few days at the beach.
• Florida's great, but the kids were mostly excited for the used Wii Kevin found on ebay to replace our ancient broken one. 
• Most of the rest of the break was spent playing in the snow while it lasted, celebrating birthdays, visiting with family, and playing Wii, ping pong, foosball, and board games.

Our quick makeshift "curtain" to cover the window to Pam's room for the week!

My annual early-morning Christmas trip to Meijer. I didn't know they opened at 6...Christmas + blizzard = line to the back of the store by 7:30am

Here comes the SNOW!

Cookie making and decorating - Ethan's dad kindly braved the blizzard to drive him over to join in

Okay, better late-ish than never...we finished hanging lights Christmas Eve

We were able to attend church for the first Christmas Eve service in years!

Ready for Christmas morning!

Waiting on the stairs

We forced a "good" picture before present time

Reading the letter from Santa

One of my favorite gifts - a pillow from Mary

The best waffle

Presents for a crowd!

The crowd!

Sibling picture at the Wacyk party

Goodbye Aunt Pam! We'll miss you!

Genny convinced us to go out sledding...without sleds. The yoga mats worked, though!

DJ, age 11

DJ's "birth day" lives so vividly in my memory, it's hard to believe it was 11 years ago! He is growing into this thoughtful, serious, hard-working kid and we love him so much and who he's becoming.

Sports are still pretty much top on DJ's list of things to do, watch, and to think, read, write, and talk about. If he plays a video game, it's a sports game. I love that I can ask him details about specific plays or players and he either has the answer or is willing to chat about it. When there's no baseball, football, or basketball to watch and he's in the mood to watch sports, he can get into a softball, water polo, or world tag (?) game just as much. He plays baseball, soccer, and basketball on LCS teams and loves just about every minute of it. DJ's greatest sorrow is we don't like to throw the football around at home nearly as much as he'd like.

But DJ also enjoys reading, math, and putting stuff together, whether it's Legos or a new tabletop foosball table. He has delightful friends at school and is working hard at getting along with his siblings. It's exciting to think about what the next year holds as we look forward to MIDDLE SCHOOL!

Birthday haircut

He's been waiting two years for the Guardians of the Galaxy ship Lego set. It's mostly for him, but a little bit for me.

Blowing out his (two) candles...one thing I forgot in the many Christmas/birthday shopping trips. This year, Grandma Linda made him an ice cream pie at his request.

Birthday bowling

What was your favorite memory from the last year?

Improving at soccer. We didn't win a single game last season, then this fall we were almost undefeated! 

What is one way God's been working in your life this year?

He's helping me get better at things. Like in the baseball hitting league, it felt impossible to hit the pitches that were coming at 50 mph. I was pretty scared at the beginning. But after the first one or two games I was able to get multiple hits in each game and even get some home runs.

How do you feel about being eleven?  

It's nice, I feel like last year went way too fast. Nine to ten was a really long year, but then ten went really fast. Not in the moment, but looking back it was super fast.

What are you most looking forward to in the next year?

Baseball season, playing with the older kids this year. We just have a better team, we're able to win more games. Wesley might come back to the soccer at LCS this year. Going to Florida and maybe visiting Roger!

Who are your best friends?

At school, Caleb, Wesley, and Ira. In the family, Otto, Roger, Xander, and Eddie

What are your strengths?

Baseball, reading, soccer, math, FIFA '23 (Nintendo Switch game). I'm good at doing chores; I've gotten a lot better at doing chores without complaining. [I would agree!] I'm good at making cold brew coffee. I know what I'm not good at...thinking of things that I'm good at. I'm good at being polite.

What careers are you considering?

Like a pastor, a paleontologist, an athlete. I think I'd like engineering or building things. I like the idea of automotive or aeronautical engineering.

Why are you interested in those fields?

I don't know, I mean, I'm a good athlete and I think it would be cool to learn about fossils and look into our past, and I think being a pastor would be cool because you get to write sermons and travel. You collect stories and connect them to the ideas in the sermons. I really like Legos, so I think I'd like engineering.

What’s your favorite song or type of music?   

"Help" by the Beatles, and my favorite type of music is Beatles music.

What's your favorite food?

Chicken pot pie.

Current favorite movie?   

The Sandlot or Back to the Future.

Current book you're reading?

The Tripod Series at school and comic books at home. Far Side, Garfield.

Favorite color?   

Light green.

Favorite place to be?

Usually I would say Aunt Pam's house, but...Petoskey or Papa John's house.

What are your favorite things to do? 

Read, play/watch sports, I like playing video games. I like traveling, being in different places. 

Is there anything else you want us to know about you?

I've had two cups of coffee and it's only 11:45 in the morning. Ah! I just got coffee in my eye! I'm only 17 years away from my golden birthday.

Christmas break kickoff/Anniversary celebration

It's beginning to be something of a tradition to visit Kalamazoo before Christmas as a family anniversary celebration. Kevin proposed at Bronson Park when it was lit up for Christmas, and it's a fun place to take the kids now.

This year, we spent some time downtown, ate pizza at Bilbo's (where Kevin and I went for one of our first dates and Nellie discovered this spring when she went for a band trip), and spent the night with Pam at her new condo! Eddie, Mary, and Annie started getting sick while we were there, but a good, Christmassy time was had by all.

Things were pretty sleepy on the way there after a long week at school

A fun find at RocketFizz, our favorite downtown store

In front of the nativity

Candy Cane Lane! 

Loving the fireplace at Pam's new place

Bilbo's

Nellie doing Nellie things

'Tis the season (for concert halls, sanctuaries, and gymnasiums)

This year, we attended a whopping ten Wernet-kid concerts and performances in the span of three weeks. It's always lovely to see them on stage after all their hard work, but it's also nice to have some free evenings again. We can pretty much summarize our Christmas season in photos from auditoriums, churches, and school gyms! Here they are, in order:

1) Nellie's Chamber Ensemble recital for the Spartan Youth Wind Symphony

2) Annie in Elf Jr. with the Midway Theater Company

This was such a fun show; I saw it three times! Annie played Shawanda the elf and a Macy's saleswoman.

3) Spartan Youth Wind Symphony winter concert - It was pretty awesome to see Nellie play at the Wharton Center! We were glad we didn't bring the other kids, though - it was a 2.5 hour concert with the MSU Wind Symphony playing as well.

4) Grand Ledge Bands winter concert

The kids didn't get off so easily this time, but it was a fun concert with lots of good Christmas music. Mary's favorite was Minor Alterations, which "sounds like Christmas music, but scary!"

5) K-3 Christmas show at LCS

Eddie was a shepherd this year

After a three-year hiatus, it was great to see this LCS staple again

6) Church Christmas kids' show: Psalty's Christmas Calamity! I waited about 36 years for this show...I used to listen to it nonstop on vinyl as a kid. 

After months of rehearsals, DJ, Eddie, and Mary finally got to share their singing and dancing with us. DJ's come a long way in his church performance career, playing Joseph this year! 😅

7) 4-12 concert at LCS - I missed DJ's first-ever concert (he's playing saxophone in band) when I was out with Covid, so this was especially cool to get to see. Annie did great on a percussion-heavy piece.

8) Grand Ledge Collage Concert - It was my first time seeing this unique annual show, and it was amazing! Nellie played flute in several "acts," and it was great to see her friends sing solos and sing with the choirs.

Oh, and we had the opportunity to do the advent reading at church. Everyone took part!

And finally, a bonus  picture of our annual Cracker Barrel trip: