To Our Dear Friends & Family,
Another year has come and gone and it will be 2009 before we know it. This year has been another busy one for the Knight Family, but it has been an amazing year full of joy and happiness.
A portion of our Christmas letter last year was the announcement of Eli James joining our family and the struggle we went through with his heart condition and hospitalization. I am ecstatic to report to you all that Eli is a healthy, happy, and beautiful boy. He continues to take 5 doses of medicine every day and will likely be on that medicine for another year or two, but his monthly EKG’s and cardiologist appointments have all ended with nothing but good news and in the words of his cardiologist, his heart rhythms and his heart rates have been “pristine” since we left the hospital over a year ago. We are truly blessed and very grateful to all the doctors and nurses that took such great care of him.
We celebrated his first birthday in October on a very cold, windy, and rainy day at Kinder Farm Park. Thank you to everyone who came out in the terrible weather and those of you who made donations to Children’s Hospital Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. We raised over $1,000.00 in Eli’s name. I was terrible at getting thank you notes out, so thank you!
Eli is a true 13 month old boy…he is into everything, climbs on everything, and is starting to jump off of everything too. He is saying about 10-15 words now and loves to hide from us under the table or behind the curtains. This has made for a few panic moments on my part until I find him and then we just laugh together. He is already starting to develop his older brothers’ humor and loves to entertain us frequently. He has started taking classes at Rolly Pollies just like Ben and he loves getting his own time in the gym to run and play. It is so much fun to watch him grow and develop and I really enjoy being a mom to two boys!
Ben…where do I begin? He is now 4 and is hands down the funniest child I have ever met. He makes everyone laugh and he has good manners to boot! He had a really busy year as well. He started playing soccer in the spring with Coach Joe (a.k.a. Daddy) and after a few practices he really got the hang of it and started scoring goals like crazy. He loved to come home after the early Saturday morning games for pancakes and to ask us if we saw his goals. The fall season went even better than the spring and he absolutely loves playing soccer and Joe loves being the coach, crying kids and all. Ben continues to be in preschool this year. He is learning so many things so quickly. He can write, he is starting to learn how to spell small words, and enjoys trying to sound out words. He continues to go to Rolly Pollies and is starting swim lessons in January.
Joe continues to works for Boeing and loves it. By the time you receive this letter he will have completed his masters degree in Information Systems. He worked very hard over the last 18 months and did a pretty good job of balancing work, school work, and family. Joe being in school didn’t leave much room for fun or getting things done around the house so come December 17th he is going to play XBOX for about 12 hours straight and then begin a list of things to do around the house I have been compiling for the last year and a half. He is excited for the XBOX, and I will leave it at that! Joe received a nice promotion this past year at work after working for Boeing for almost 5 years. He loves his job and everyone he works with so that makes going to work easy for him. Joe did some more traveling this year, back to Africa, England, and Korea and he is headed to Alaska in January. He loves traveling and I continue to enjoy the day he comes home from the trips!
I am still at home with the boys. I wouldn’t want it any other way! I have the best job in the world and Joe, Ben, and Eli make my world go round! I still work at Rolly Pollies a few nights here and there and I watch my little buddy Nick two times a week. I also started playing soccer this year on a Moms League that plays every Friday night. A bunch of my girlfriends and I got together, most of us never playing before and we started a team. We are in our third season now and we have improved so much that we are now in second place in the league. I have so much fun every Friday night and it is great to play on a team with some of my closest friends.
We had the 4th annual Round for Robin Golf Tournament this year. We raised over $25,000.00 to be donated to Robin’s (Joe’s mother) memorial fund at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Research Center. The tournament gets bigger and better every year and we have so much fun as a family hosting it.
We had a fantastic vacation this year with our dear friends, Scott and Carol and their two children. We went to Clearwater Beach, Florida and to Disney World. It was so much fun and all the kids got along so well that we might actually do it again soon! J Ben and Eli loved the beach. Ben loved jumping into the waves and playing with the sand and Eli loved eating the sand. Disney World was fantastic as usual and Eli’s first trip there was a memorable one.
Joe and I finally bit the bullet and bought a minivan! We always swore we would never drive a minivan, no matter how many kids we had, but after a few road trips with no room to move in our SUV, we decided it was time. It was a fantastic purchase and I play the part of soccer mom very well in our Honda Odyssey! Ben thinks it is the coolest car ever because it has “robot doors” that open all by themselves.
In October Joe’s sister, Ruby got married. The wedding was beautiful and so much fun. We officially welcomed Uncle Isaac into the Knight Family and we are thrilled to have him. We were all in the wedding and Ben and Eli were the ring bearers. Eli actually crawled all the way down the aisle and Ben was giving high fives to random people as he walked down. It was definitely a sight to see! We wish them all the happiness in the world!
My sister, Breauna moved to Maryland this summer to continue her nanny position as the family moved near us. It is so nice to have a part of my family here and I love to spend the weekends with her and have some quality sister time. I am hoping her move here is permanent, but we will have to see.
We hope this letter finds everyone healthy, happy, and excited to celebrate the Holidays. We think of you all often and wish you a Merry Christmas and a Fantastic 2009!
Love,
Joe, Elyse, Ben, and Eli