Happy Holidays!

December 2009

Dear Friends and Family,

This year we’d like to give you a glimpse into our family life using the theme You can tell a lot about a Gillespie based on…

You Can Tell a lot about a Gillespie based on the contents of their nightstand! This year our four year old daughter Katherine got her first nightstand next to her bed. We had no way of knowing this would be such a big deal for her, but she immediately started making it a point to fill her beloved nightstand drawer with treasures. It took us a while to notice things disappearing from around the house, but one day I randomly opened her nightstand drawer and discovered Jeremy’s good wristwatch, some of my jewelry, a travel alarm clock we had stored away in case we ever travel anywhere, and eighteen tubes of chapstick, among other things. We wouldn’t be so worried about Katherine’s kleptomaniac tendencies had she not tried to stab Jeremy with a butter knife while playing wrestle mania over Thanksgiving. She’s a livewire and we feel blessed this Christmas season that she hasn’t yet been turned over to the authorities.

You can tell a lot about a Gillespie based on their willingness to endure public humiliation! For those of you who do not know about Mustache May, let me just say I envy your blissful ignorance. Apparently someone with too much free time initiated a nationwide “let’s grow a hideous mustache” tradition and last spring it hit our house hard. So, Jeremy and a couple of his brothers enthusiastically passed the month of May embracing their upper-lip facial hair. While I’ve always appreciated the thick dark hair on Jeremy’s head, the addition of a black, bushy Tom Sellek-style stache’ was a little too reminiscent of Saddam Hussein or any other pick of Middle Eastern terrorists. Apparently I wasn’t the only one put off because pretty much everyone we know stopped me to politely inquire about my deranged husband. But as things go, the more I complained the more excited Jeremy became about his mustache. His best rebuttal was, “Honey, don’t see this as my mustache, see it as our mustache. If you’re not liking the Tom Sellek look we could always try “The Hitler,” or better yet a good old fashioned handle bar stache’. Needless to say, Jeremy and his brothers a.k.a. “The Joint Chiefs of Stache’” breathlessly await their second annual observance of Mustache May in 2010.

You can tell a lot about a Gillespie based on their overall disinterest in physical exertion of any sort! Just to clarify, we’re talking about Elisabeth, not me! So she is eleven months old and so far her tricks include a violent wave of her forearm (waving hello), the word “dada” and a partial army crawl─ but only when you dangle candy six inches in front of her face. Our other girls were pretty much the laziest babies ever, but this last one sure is living up the lap dog life. Lucky for her she has older sisters willing to cart her around on their hip like a fat joweled Care Bear.

You Can Tell a lot about a Gillespie based on their willingness to hold a shrieking infant! Madeleine turned six years old this month and having her around to help with our fat joweled Care Bear has pretty much made the unpleasant squalling infant stage bearable. Even when our baby was still a five pounder last winter, I would often ask Madeleine to “take a turn” holding her and she gladly would. Recently she has taken to leaving a footstool next to the crib so that she can run upstairs and haul the baby out of bed after naptime. Now some of you may be feeling concerned right now, images of parental negligence flashing through your minds, but don’t you worry. After receiving a disapproving reprimand from Jeremy I decided to provide Madeleine with an emergency training course. She paid careful attention as I showed her how to turn her body so that she doesn’t crush the baby in the unhappy event that she should trip and fall. Well, let me tell you this kid ain’t dumb, because a few weeks later Madeleine started falling down the stairs with the baby in her arms and she correctly turned her body mid-fall and saved her sister! Other than a slight forehead graze on the banister, the baby was totally fine and I was left feeling immensely proud of Madeleine’s quick thinking, cat-like speed and reflexes. Unfortunately for me, Jeremy didn’t see the whole situation in quite the same light!

You can tell a lot about a Gillespie based on the number of times they see New Moon! Jeremy forced me to write this one. So here’s the deal, when the first Twilight movie was in the theater I was invited along with a big group of girls to go and I passively agreed, without much enthusiasm. Some of them showed up wearing “Bite Me” tee-shirts and someone was thoughtful enough to provide treat bags full of red candy and plastic vampire teeth. At some point during the hooting and hollering that went on during that movie it occurred to me that cult movies are REALLY fun. So this month I’ve seen New Moon twice in the theater and I informed Jeremy that when Eclipse comes out I’m going to the opening day, midnight showing. So for all you self-important movie critics out there, please save your arguments because I’m pretty sure we’ve heard em’ all. But life is too short to stay home with one’s nose sniffed up in disapproval and besides, I never was one to discriminate when it comes to inventing reasons for social gatherings!

I just re-read through this letter and I see it offers little in the way of true detail about our current life. I suppose our daily rituals─ Jeremy’s insurance brokering job with Moreton and missionary activities as Ward Mission Leader, my creative writing and teaching English classes at Arapahoe College, Madeleine learning how to read in Kindergarten, Katherine refining her criminal ways, and the baby eating, sleeping and crying all day long─ aren’t nearly as interesting. Oh well, we hope these brief snapshots speak for themselves in telling a lot about our crazy, happy, adventure filled life.

We wish you much love and laughter during this holiday season!

Love Jeremy, Lauren, Madeleine, Katherine, and Elisabeth Gillespie

PS- Please visit our slowly evolving blog: thegillespiegirls.blogspot.com