Wolfe Christmas letter

With traveling and life in general, I didn't send out as many Christmas cards this year. So, I figured I would post our family letter, complete with the pictures, on our blog. Sorry if you have read this already... (and sorry if the formatting is funny. It never looks the same in preview as it does on the actual blog.)

Please be gracious as you read our Wolfe family year in review in Suess-ish style.

Little boy, Jairus boy, ABC
White truck, Quiero peces, one, two, three
2 years old, now, he has become,
riding his bike while playing the drum.
Playing all day and sleeping all night
growing and learning, wow, what a sight!
As curious as George, and as happy for sure
any boredom we have, he soon will cure.
Trains and bless you, la luna, and moto,
Toasti-O’s, agua, snacks, raisins, ‘n jugo,
So many words he is learning to say
Amazing us, delighting us as we show him the Way.

Friends at church and friends from school
Big friends, little friends, all are cool.
Thorntons came to see us in the spring
1-2-3 cousins, play and sing
Some Wolfes came for Thanksgiving day
Trains, trucks, and troodlefents, play, play, play.
Kissing cousins, playing cousins, other friends too
We’re blessed to have friends and family like you.

Work and school are the same old here
Lynelle’s history repeats itself one more year
Also teaching English, now, can’t you seed?
Crown her grammar queen. Grammar queen, indeed!
New job, new job, Joe has found
working from home, but no fooling around.
Busy, busy, busy bees don’t we be?
Can’t we do anything more, hmm, let’s see.
Joe’s school, Bible studies, prayer groups, too
choir practice, discipleship classes, and planning for Peru.

One foot, two foots, three foots, four
five foots, six foots, no – no more
3 little Wolfes with 3 baseball hats
Watch the Rangers with balls and bats
40,000 fans sitting in stands
3 little Wolfes clapping their hands.

Lynelle did go to New York & DC.
She did go, did go with her school LCC.
100 others went with her too,
7th and 8th graders comprised her crew.

In February, they came and went
by plane, by bus, and Troodlefent.
With all of these and lots of noise
she traveled away without her boys.

Then came March, Joe went to Peru
With our church to see what God can do.
The church friends and he stayed for a week
planning and praying God’s purpose to seek.

We went to Ohio to see Paul wed
We didn’t take Jairus but left him instead.
With the Lewis duo, we drove all the way
Waffle House, caffeine, and Chick-fil-A.

Hey, hold on, there’s a little bit more.
Lynelle and Jairus took off this summer to explore.
They went with the Bane folks to Kalamazoo
No! PA - Philadelphia and Gettysburg, too.

Quick trip, sad trip to LA
All went, all went, Mamaw McGee passed away.
Now a fast trip to New York for Joe
Then to WY for Christmas in hopes to see snow.
Okay, okay, let’s end this refrain
All this silliness is getting lame.

There’s not much more to tell you right now
Come see us next year, we don’t care how.
Maybe by boat, Troodlefent, or train,
Come in the snow, the sun, or the rain.
Would you, could you in the spring?
Would you, could you bring that Thing?
Would you, could you in the fall?
Would you, could you come at all?
We really like you, no liar we am,
We’ll even fix you bleu cheese and spam.

Look us up on the web to see how we fare
Our Blog, our email or Facebook if you dare.
Remember the reason we celebrate this time
“God bless us all, everyone” in ’09.

The 3 words that best describe this family are as follows, and I quote: “Joe, Lynelle, Jairus.”

Wolfe Publishing House in Hurst, Texas Copyright © 2008

Merry Christmas!

We are in Wyoming for a COLD Christmas with my parents. But I wanted to log on to just wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Jairus was a great little traveler and he is LOVING his time with Grandpa and Grandma.

When we get back I will be blogging more. I actually have 4 blogs written in my head, but with finals and getting ready to travel, I haven't written them yet. But check back next week for a whirlwind of blogs! (or don't if you don't want to suffer -- I won't know!:) )

May you remember why we really celebrate this season. We are thankful for Jesus! We pray God's blessings over you!

Unique counting

Even though this happened a couple of months ago, I have to blog about it because it is one of my favorite Jairus' stories!

One night in September when Jairus and I were driving home from a friend's house, Jairus correctly identified the moon. I thought this was pretty cool because we had identified the moon in passing in some books, but I don't remember purposely pointing out the real moon. I thought it was neat that Jairus made this connection on his own. The next night, Joe was with us and Jairus again identified the moon. So, Joe, who primarily speaks to Jairus in Spanish, identified the moon in Spanish, luna. At this, Jairus responded... dos, tres, cuarto, etc.

I guess to his little ears, luna and uno sounded the same! :)

Off with the Boot!

Jairus went back to the doctor this week to see about his foot. The x-ray part of the visit wasn't very fun, but still the doctor granted him release from the boot. 3 cheers! As Joe and Jairus were leaving the office, Jairus wanted to put back on his "special boot." (We called it special to make him want to wear it in the first place.) It seems that he had forgotten how undesirable and limiting it was at first. He must have gotten accustomed to not being able to jump as high or run as fast. It had become comfortable, so much so that when he was freed from it, he wanted to put it right back on.

Joe was quick to note that what Jairus exhibited was a good analogy to us as Christians. We’ve been freed from the crutch of sin. We don’t have to live with the debilitating consequences of acting in opposition to God’s desire for us, but we’ve become so accustomed and comfortable in those habits that we prefer the ways of sin to the freedom found in Christ. Maybe we even have little cute names for our sin. So we limp along with our sin crutches. But let me assure you, that just as little boys are made to run, we are made to run in Christ (1 Cor 9:24 & 2 Tim 4:7).

Which that truth prompted me to start to sing the the Newsboys song, "I am Free."

I am free to run (I am free to run)

and I am free to dance (I am free to dance)

I am free to live for You (I am free to live for You)

I am free (I am free)

yes, I am free (I am free)

I am free!

Jairus is free to run and jump on his healed foot.

And we are free to run the race set out before us. Ready, set, GO!

Great Wall of Gerber

Last year when Jairus was eating baby food, we started saving the nifty plastic containers. Ways to reuse the containers could be almost limitless from craft projects for VBS to condiment holders for lunch boxes. But in the Wolfe household, they became useful as building blocks. Joe created Gerber towers and the Great Wall of Gerber. What fun they were for little crawling Jairus to destroy!

Pretty early on, we decided to keep each and every plastic baby food container. Granted, we threw away a few when we traveled, ate at a restaurant, or melted them reheating some other food, but I would say we held on to 90%. Now at the time Jairus was eating these Gerber foods, it seemed like we had thousands of containers, and it also felt like an eternity of buying these special baby foods. Looking back, it only lasted a few months and we only had several hundred.

For months we had planned on making a big final Gerber creation. Finally in October the time had come! (plus we had to clear off the stacks and stacks of containers that filled our kitchen counter!). So, one Friday night after Jairus had gone to bed, our friend, Russ, helped Joe create the great Gerber Colosseum! Saturday morning Jairus awoke to find an usual toy in the living room. At first he was uncertain of what to do, but after we placed him in the middle, he discovered the joy of destruction!! Within minutes the great Colosseum was gone. Every last container was knocked off another. He even kicked them around for good measure.












Don't buy into the lie that you have seen the last of the great Gerber creations. Our hundreds of containers are all boxed up and will be added with Baby Holt's collection. It may take a year or so...but the containers will rise again! :)

Thanksgiving

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! I hope that you have recovered from eating too much in the last couple days. And may you not be tired of turkey leftovers just yet! :)

Thanksgiving! What a truly great American holiday. Ideally,

we should live in the spirit of Thanksgiving everyday. But isn't cool that we set aside time each year to pause and be purposefully thankful. I am sure your "thankfulness" list was long, just as ours. We really do have MUCH for which to give thanks.

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving in Dallas at Mamaw and Papaw Wolfe's house. Jimmy, Kristi, Melodie & Caitlyn, and Tony, Vanessa, Ethan & Aaron came to town for a few days to celebrate with us. We enjoyed a couple of days relaxing with family -- eating, playing games, eating some more.

Jairus had fun playing with his cousins. Usually he has Mamaw's house and Mamaw all to himself, but he did a good job sharing! :)

Flash to the past :)

Thanksgiving 2006 ~ 1 month old

Thanksgiving 2007 -- first time to REALLY walk

Thanksgiving 2008

H says "Hah"

I know, I know. It has been a month since Jairus' birthday and I have yet to blog about it. Well, between my mom and I, we have dozens of pictures! It feels impossible to narrow them down and yet really do justice to the little party he had. I think I will just put them in a flickr album for anyone who is interested.

Instead I am going to tell my favorite story from that day.

We had a Curious George themed party with just a few family friends. I kept it pretty low key so that Jairus wouldn't be overwhelmed. And he had a great time! When he woke up from his afternoon nap the house was filled with "George" items, which Jairus LOVED!

Jairus still didn't really get the art and purpose of unwrapping gifts. If the gift was in a gift bag, he did pretty good on his own. But honest-to-goodness wrapped gifts, he needed help. On one gift, his almost 3-years-old friend, Aubrie, helped him. While she was busy tearing off the "Happy Birthday" paper, Jairus grabbed a piece of the paper and started to "read" it. "H says Hah", etc. Ha! I bet he'll never be so interested in the paper again! :)

Silent Treatment

This past weekend Joe and I made a mad dash to Ohio for a friend's wedding. With another couple, we drove the 16+ hours straight both coming and going. That is one reason we decided not to take Jairus with us on the journey. Instead, he got 3 fun-filled days with Mamaw and Papaw Wolfe. This is the longest he has even been away from both of us. Whenever one of us has traveled, the other parental unit has been at home. Now we know he had a great time and got along just fine without us, but you would never guess that by the reaction we got Sunday afternoon when he saw us. To let us know that he was mad at us for leaving him, Jairus gave us the silent treatment. He wanted us to hold him but he was not going to talk to us or smile or anything! Thankfully that trend ended when he woke up from his nap at home! He has a been a bit clingy, but at least he is talking again!

The wedding was beautiful and well worth the hours upon hours spent in the car. This young couple is such a testimony to the blessings of waiting on God's perfect timing. They both felt called to work in the Congo through Wycliffe Bible Translators. Individually they were pursuing that calling when God brought them together. Their God story is really cool and this is just the beginning. We look forward to seeing the rest of their destiny unfold.

Of course, attending a wedding always makes me retrospective and introspective. I love thinking back to our wedding day because it was so special. I couldn't have asked for a better wedding. What a special memory! But weddings also cause me to think about my marriage. Am I living up to the covenant I signed? Is our marriage better than the special ceremony 6 years ago? The wedding is just one day, but marriage is day after day after day. But I walked away thankful -- thankful to God for His blessing and watch care over our marriage, for giving me a wonderful husband, and for His grace to walk out married life.

Silly Urkey

One of my favorite books to read with Jairus is Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton. (Actually, we love all her books! If you have kids, look for her books!)

In the story, animals of all shapes, sizes and kinds are correctly wearing colorful hats, shoes, pants, etc, BUT the turkey can never seem to get it right. Poor Turkey has his pants on his head or jacket on his nose or something obviously wrong. Several weeks ago as Jairus and I read the story, I commented "silly turkey." Jairus caught on quickly pointing out on every page "silly urkey." Later that night when Jairus was getting ready for bed I commented that he was "silly Jairus." That started it. Ever since, "silly Jairus" has been part of our interactions. It didn't take Jairus but a few days to transfer the silliness to us -- silly mommy or silly daddy - even if we weren't doing anything silly. But we would exchange the silly accusations just because it was cute, fun, and well....silly. :)

And the whole silliness has continued to grow. When Grandma Bane was here for his birthday, she was pulled into the game with a "silly ganma" once or twice. But this last week has been a hoot! Now our friends are silly -- even baby Holt. We also have "silly George" (Curious that is), "silly People" (in the Little variety), "silly triangle" (mom's clothes hanger), etc. You get the idea.

This week he also developed an adaptation -- which I could save for another blog....but I am on a roll! When I am in the living room trying to do school work, Jairus likes to sit with me or more like on me. He wants my attention. Sometimes I will cradle him, hug him real tight, kiss him, and say "baby Jairus." He usually responds with laughter and a repeated "baby Jairus." But this week he totally cracked me up. During our little interaction Jairus' response was "baby mommy."

Ha! Silly Jairus!!!!

Toddler Walking

The J-boy is up and at 'em again! :)

Thankfully, yesterday he saw an orthopedic doctor who decided to put him in a boot for the next 3 weeks. He goes back the first of December for more x-rays and we'll go from there. When they took the splint off, Jairus' foot was still a little swollen, and he was able to tell Joe "owee" and "no owee." So, it still hurt him a bit.

The orthopedic thinks that it is likely a hairline fracture and wants to be safe to protect him. We are just SO thankful that he has a walking boot. Trying to keep Jairus from walking in that splint was nearly impossible. Saturday he did ok and we watched several movies. But by Sunday he was tired of crawling "like a baby." So far, he has done great adjusting to the boot. It is a little big and awkward, but he seems to be maneuvering even better today.

Thanks for all your concerns. Check back in 3 weeks for pictures of his foot in normal shoes.

Actually, you can check back before then too because I might actually blog sometime. :)

No Walking!

The question of the day: how do you keep an active 2 year old boy from walking?

If you know the answer, please enlighten us. After a trip to Urgent Care this evening, Jairus came home with a splint, some Motrin and instructions not to walk!

I hear your question: what happened. So, here is the story.

This evening Jairus and Joe were preparing to go get the mail. Jairus ran to get his shoes/socks when he fell in the hallway. It was weird. He sometimes fake falls, and there are a few times he gets tripped up. But this time he got up crying real tears. Joe was finally able to get him calm enough to figure out that his left foot hurt. It was kinda cute when Joe was holding Jairus, he put his hands on his head, shook his head and said "oh no." Anyway -- when we put him down, he wouldn't put any weight on the foot and limped on his heel. He also wanted Joe to hold him. But we figured he just twisted it so no big deal.

About an hour later we were getting ready to leave for the football game which meant putting pants on the boy and his shoes. Well, he screamed when Joe put pants on him. That is when we noticed his foot was swollen. He still wouldn't put any weight on his left foot when he hobbled around. So, we decided to take advantage of having insurance and play it safe not sorry. Off to urgent care we went.

After a surprisingly short wait in the waiting room, we spent a long time in one of those curtain rooms. The doctor took x-rays to look for a fracture. X-rays were an ordeal to say the least. It took Joe, a female nurse, and a big male nurse to wrestle Jairus down and another nurse to take the 2 pictures. The x-rays didn't show a break, but the doctor said that toddler fractures are pretty common especially along growth plates (like at his ankle). So, she had a splint put on his leg and instructed us to see an orthopedic doctor next week. (Why don't things like this happen during the week so we can a specialist the next day??)

Now we are supposed to keep him from walking and watch for swelling and fever, etc. Good times.

We think it probably is just a bruise and sprain. But since neither of us have doctorates in any subject, we figured that we should follow instructions from someone who does. :) But all things considered, it is all good. Join us in praying that Jairus' foot and leg will be just fine.