Weber's Link

During this Christmas and New Year season, I like to reflect on how good our lives really are. Home, family, friends.
One of our friends had some really powerful things to say in his blog. They've adopted 3 children from the Ukraine, the most recent just 3 weeks ago. Check out what Eric had to say (and see the adorable picture of their family). Here's the link, just click on it:  Weber's Blog
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Happy 1st Birthday Baby Sophia!

Wilkins Christmas Update 2010

Since anyone reading this has access to the blog to check back and see what we've been up to over the past year, I'll just give a few brief updates on everyone. Plus, that's all I have time for because I have to be at court at 9am today. Don't worry. I'm not in trouble. It concerns the baby and I try to make sure to be at anything that concerns the kids.

So here's the short version of us:

Anthony will turn 6 in four days. He's in kindergarten and, for the most part, likes school. He loves to do anything Riley does, especially sports or playing the Wii. He loves to hug and snuggle and always has to touch everything. And I really mean everything. He lost his first tooth on Christmas day.

Zeke is recovering nicely from his surgery in September. He's ditched the wheelchair and now uses the walker. He has physical therapy twice a week at school and twice a week at the hospital. We take him back to St Paul in Feb for a checkup. He continues to do well in school and is pretty much up to 2nd grade level in math and his reading is about a 1st grade level. Since he turned 8 in October, he is now eligible to participate in Special Olympic sports and he's super excited to get started.

Taylor loves anything that involves people. She played soccer this year, more for the socialization than for a love of the game. She enjoys putting on makeup and fingernail polish but also holds her own with her brothers. For the past few months she's been sharing a room with Grandma Sandy. Taylor's great at helping in the kitchen and she is also a wonderful "little mother" to the baby.

Riley played soccer this spring and started piano lessons this fall. He played flag football and is currently in basketball. He's loves almost any sports. In school, math and science seem to come really easily to him. At home, he especially loves playing with legos, playing the Wii and his DS and wrestling with his little brother.

Brittney made the high school gymnastics team as a 7th grader so that takes up a lot of her time. They practice every day after school until 6pm. She took 1st place in All-Around at her first JV tournament. She is doing well in school and keeps up with everything she has going on. She loves hanging out with friends, texting and shopping.

Baby Sophia is still with us. It's been 5 months now. We're coming up on her birthday in a few days. I can't say a lot about her situation but I will say that she is still a foster child and is not legally up for adoption at this time. That may change in the future but for now she is with us as a foster child. She has physical therapy, early childhood, early headstart and numerous visits at Social Services each week so her schedule is pretty full for a little one.

Steve has been with Daktronics for 11 years but has decided to make a career change as of the first of the year. He has taken a position with Central Plains Insurance, a company based out of Yankton. He will be doing lots of traveling back and forth for a while while he learns the ropes but he will have an office in Brookings. It took a while to make the decision but the money is better, the stress is lower, the manager is awesome and the job will be much more condusive to family life. And the new work phone, computer and car didn't hurt either!  Steve is also still working part time at the Swiftel Center doing concessions for various events. He likes the interaction with people and gets in on some fun events.

Me - Sometimes it seems like all I do is run from one kids activity, event or therapy to the next. But I do have a few activities of my own. I'm on the board for Camp Adventure, the summer camp in our area for children with disabilities, and am in the process of writing some grants for them.  I was also elected to the board of the InterAgency Advisory Council in Brookings, which oversees various agencies and organizations in the community. I'm also still on the PPRT (Permancy Planning Review Team) for Social Services. Each month we meet with case workers, parents, foster parents, lawyers, CASA workers, etc and review cases of every child in foster care for a least six months. My other activities include laundry, cooking, cleaning, dishes, helping with homework & projects, transporting kids and just plain keeping a household of 9 running semi-smoothly.

And that, my friends, is a bit of our family.

Heather's Hat

I told him he should audition for the movie Grumpier Old Men.

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Hobbie Christmas

Hot chocolate and cookies

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 Patiently waiting for presents

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Brittney, Taylor & Aubrey put on a show

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Zeke's new DS

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Anthony's new DS

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Aubrey & Taylor with their new cameras

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Riley's new keyboard

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Three-fourths of the Dubro family

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Tay & Zeke

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Anthony & Riley

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All the grandkids in their new PJ's

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DSS Foster/Adoptive Christmas Party

I offered to take one of Brittney on Santa's lap but she gracefully declined. She did still take the present though!
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Christmas Pictures

Some random Christmas pictures

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Winter Wonderland

This is the view from my parent's kitchen. I love the winter wonderland feel. It's so peaceful and cheery. What you don't see in the picture is the view behind me of the kitchen full of food and people. With eight grandchildren running around, I wouldn't use the word peaceful. Joyful, fun, exciting maybe, but definitely not peaceful!
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Riley Says

While trying to wait patiently for Steve's family to arrive, Riley says, "I can't wait to see what I get!" Then he thought a moment and continued, "But Christmas isn't about getting, it's about.....it's about......it's about.....It's about something else but I can't remember what!"
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Anthony's Tooth

Anthony lost his first tooth on Christmas Day!

I hate the tooth fairy. It's one of my worst parenting issues. Not because I'm morally opposed to money for teeth or anything. It's because it seems like every time one of our kids loses a tooth, I forget to stay up late and get the money under their pillow. Then I have to use some sort of trickery in the morning to get the money there.  Anthony came to me the next morning almost in tears because he couldn't find the tooth he put under his pillow and there wasn't any money. Don't worry - after a slight of hand - he found four quarters hidden in his bed! Thank goodness the tooth got lost during the night or I'd have even more explaining to do!

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Merry Christmas

Merry Day After Christmas! I vowed to take the day yesterday just relaxing with my family at home. It was amazing! Opening presents, eating great holiday food, playing board games & Wii games and just generally having fun together. I love my family!!!

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I put my phone away for the day since I knew we didn't have to be anywhere and no one really needed anything on Christmas. Then I was really bummed because I ended up missing texts from my little brother, my big brother, my mom and 27 from our baby's mom. (No, that's not a typo. She reallly texted me 27 times in 2 hours yesterday)Steve got me a really cool blue tooth device for my phone for Christmas so hopefully I won't be missing so many phone calls anymore! At least that's what he's hoping!
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I was so tired last night that I forgot to set a "don't get up before" rule. As in, don't get up before 7am or even 6am. It's only 5:30 now and Steve's already chased 3 kids back to bed.

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Taylor Says

Taylor and I were at our local grocery store at 6:30am yesterday and we kept seeing smiling employees everywhere. They were always asking us if we needed help, telling us Merry Christmas and being just plain friendly. They're usually very nice there but it just seemed like every one was especially cheerful that morning. As we were checking out, I mentioned to Taylor that the employees were really happy and helpful today. Her response to me was, "Well duhhhhhh!  It's two days before Christmas!"

Christmas Holiday!

As you can tell, I haven't had a lot of time lately. Today is the first day of my Christmas holiday! I'm declaring it so!

I'm already enjoying this Christmas weekend. I'm sitting at my computer with a cup of coffee. A few of the kids are downstairs quietly watching TV and the rest of the family is still sleeping.

 

• The kids have been out of school since noon on Wednesday, so no more running to school concerts, plays, parties or taking the forgotten, I-have-to-have-it-right-now-or-the-world-will-end items to school.
• Zeke's physical therapy at the hospital is only on Mondays and Wednesdays and we don't have to be back there until the 27th.
• The baby doesn't have any physical therapy, early childhood education, early headstart, PALS, doctor appointments, helmet checks or visits until next week, so I won't have to cart her out into the deep snow until after Christmas.
• Riley's basketball and piano lessons will continue after Christmas.
• Brittney's High School Gymnastics team practiced yesterday for the last time until after Christmas. I think she goes back on Monday though.
• Steve has today off so he'll be home Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Then he works next week to complete the last of his 5 days with Daktronics before starting his new job in January..

Today, we're just relaxing. The kids will get to dig into their stockings from Grandma Letoy this morning. For lunch, I'll let them help make either manicotti or stromboli. Tonight at 5, we'll head down the street to church for the candlelight service. It's one of our family's favorite holiday traditions. The kids know if they behave during the service, they get to have their candle lit. You've never seen such well-behaved children in a church service before! When we get home, we snack and the kids usually talk me into letting them open one present.
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Christmas morning, it gets a bit chaotic for a while. But it's so fun! First, we read the Christmas story. And I mean the one from the bible about Jesus,  not Old St Nick. Steve's dad had a tradition of reading from a book his father had written that combined all the new testiment into chronological order. It's interesting for adults who find that fasinating, but it was really long and indepth for the little ones. We opted to keep a variation of the tradition by reading a more child friendly verson.
Then the kids get to open their presents. Every year, Steve and I try to get each child the one thing (within reason) that they seemed to really want throughout the year. Not buying our kids much extra during the year really pays off during Christmas because they're so excited to get something they wanted. During the past few weeks, I also took each kid shopping individually. I give them $25 and they pick out gifts for their siblings for five dollars or less. It's really fun to watch them learn to budget money and find things that they know someone else will like. The first year I decided to do that, I was afraid that they'd just get a bunch of junk, but they really know what their brothers and sisters would like! Every year it seems to be a bit more complicated to take each child though. I made it all the way to Anthony before the hectic schedule overtook me. So thanks Grandma Connie for taking him shopping and helping finish the Christmas tradition this year!
After presents and while the kids are busy (both big and little), I make blueberry muffins.
This year, I'm actually going to make the entire Christmas dinner just for us. When the kids were younger, they didn't really care about Christmas dinner, so unless we were at someone else's house or had someone coming to our house, we didn't go the traditional route. This year, all but the baby are old enough to help and we'll be making ham, potatoes & gravey, greeen been casserole, etc for our "little" family of 8. It'll be great! There's no pressure for it to be perfect, just to feed us a good meal and have some family time.
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Sunday, we'll go to church in the morning, have some lunch and then head out to my folks for some sledding, hot chocolate, soup supper (or as Taylor thought she heard me say, "stupid supper?"), and lots more presents.
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7am and I think I only have 3 kids awake so far! Wow! A few are actually sleeping in.
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I am SO looking forward to a relaxing few days!

Christmas 2003

Papa Steve & Taylor

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This is the first picture we ever saw of our boys.

It was taken a few months before we met them in person.

Riley was 4, Zeke was 3 and Anthony was a little over 1.

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Taylor Says

Apparently yesterday Taylor took a black pen and scribbled in her armpits. When I questioned her, her response was simple. "You and Joni have hair under your armpits. I wanted some too."

Anthony Says

Taylor: "We sang that song on our tutor's last day."

Anthony: "What's a tutor? Do they toot a lot?"

Riley's Concert Pictures

Still no luck uploading the video of the duet so here are some pictures to tide you over :)

I'll see if Brittney can help me with the video tonight.

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And just for the record, I didn't make him wear a shirt and tie.

That's his outfit of choice when he dresses up.

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My handsome oldest nephew Joe

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Five minutes of "still" from six of the kids playing over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Anthony, Brittney, Riley, Mikah, Misha and Taylor.

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Our new friend Mikah hardly knows any English, but I absolutely love the fact that every time I handed him something, he smiled and said "Thank you!"

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Anthony Says

I'm in the office working on the baby's monthly paperwork when I hear a noises coming from the other room. Then Anthony walks in to the office and calmly announces, "Mom, there's nothing wrong in the kitchen." and walks back out.  Guess it's time to check out what's going on in the kitchen!

Huron Gymnastics Meet Pictures

Brittney competed in her first High School Gymnastics event on Tuesday evening. Her team competed against Huron. Not only did Brit do well individually, but her team won the meet! I'll see if I can load some video on another post later.

Brittney and a few of her teammates

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 The Brookings High School Gymnastics Team

The varsity team is in black and the JV team is in red w/black pants.

Brittney is fourth in the JV line.

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 Brittney taking 1st Place in the All-Around competition.

For the all-around score, they add together the gymnast's scores from each individual event.

She scored well enough on bars, floor, beam and vault to take the top honor in the JV division.

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