WHITED CHRISTMAS

The traditional Whited Christmas was held this past Saturday at the home of James and Juanette Whited in Cloverdale, Indiana. Although the number of family members in attendance was a little smaller than in previous years, the amount of joy and festivus in the air did not dimish at all. This occasion marked the first Christmas for Spencer Gene Pruit and Carson Jase Whited, and they both seemed to enjoy the event tremendously. A delicious meal was prepared by Juanette Whited, which featured the traditional holiday ham, macaroni and cheese, and Jim Whited's famous chili. As always there were some very special gifts given, and although none of the gifts were puppies, it did seem that all members of the family enjoyed the gifts that were received. Some of the more notable gifts included X-ray glasses for John Whited, animal placenta for Mary Wilson, and Kelsey's nuts for several members of the family. Although the Publisher did not receive a damn potato this year, he did receive some Vienna sausages and a genuine Texan stained-glass window decoration. Tom Whited was proud to show off the recent dental work that he had done over the last few weeks. His smile just lit up the room (see photo below).

VISIT WITH SANTA

These were taken this morning when Santa made his annual trip to Cloverdale. Carson was facscinated by the big man in red and surprisingly Jackson was considerably nervous at first and was not going to go sit with him. As you can see in the picture, Carson gave the big beard a few good tugs and it worried Santa a bit. Jackson admitted to being "a little nervous" but after Santa spoke some kind words and a gift bag was offered Jackson climbed up on his lap. Jackson asked Santa for "The Thing motorcycle and a Shrek 2 video game and some surprises." Santa encouraged Jackson to mind his Mommy and Daddy and he told Jackson that he would see what he could do.

Thanksgiving in Cincy








These shots from Turkey Day in Cincy were provided by Thomas A. Whited. Thanks, Tom for your contribution. You will not be fired, after all.

Getting ready for Christmas

Boy, I have not done a good just keeping fresh stuff on The Whited News. No Thanksgiving update, although Thomas plans to email some shots for contribution from the Whited Thanksgiving in Cincy. We spent turkey day with Kim's family this year, alternating as we always do. We have just been busy like everyone else. Trying to get a decent start on our Christmas shopping. The boys are doing real well. Carson is sick right now and is also getting more teeth, so he is double uncomfortable. Right now his smile is a bit lopsided. He is really walking well now, it just seems to start happening so fast. He can pretty much walk all the way across a room now without falling down more times than not. Jackson is preparing for a Christmas program at his preschool at church. His class will be singing "Away in a Manger" and other classic Christmas tunes. It remains to be seen if he will have his index finger jammed up his nose for the entire performance like last year. He has also really progressed with his writing and letter recognition as of late, and can write his first and last name and a few other words. He is really interested in this and proud of himself. The annual Whited Christmas will be taking place in Cloverdale this year, in about a week and a half so we are trying to procure all of our stocking stuffers and other gifts. TTFN.

FIRST STEPS & WRITING MILESTONES


The past week has been an exciting one with cool milestones for both of our boys. Carson has been taking his first steps and is sure to be walking around pretty good by Thanksgiving. Jackson has been writing his name and doing a great job with learning his letters. On Friday, Jackson brough the envelope pictured here to his Daddy and explained that he had written a letter to him. Check it out! He did a great job writing his name all by himself. Jackson also received his first ever "report card" this week and it was exciting to see the the teacher had rated him outstanding in every single category, and had written: "Jackson is wonderful!" in the comments section. He loves his new school and is obviously doing awesome.

Mr. Carson has been taking 3-4 steps at a time this week and really seems to be enjoying his new abilities. Here are a couple of pictures of some of his first steps, taken today 11-13-05. He has been speaking with more clarity now, saying most commonly "Dada", "Mama", and "kitty". I have also included the "traditional" 10 month picture, actually taken 11-5-05.

The boys are the ones providing all the excitement around here, so clearly they deserve to dominate recent headlines of TWN.

Halloween 2005

Happy Pranks and Candies!! It was Batman and Robin as the brothers had their first Halloween together. One might have thought that it would have been Batman played by the elder with the sidekick of Robin as a little one, but that was not to be the case! Next year "The Carse" will get to participate in the pumpkin carving, but for his first time, he was relegated to the role of spectator.

A few other good wedding shots...

Here is Tom, Billy, Jim, Jackson and Alex outside of the AmeriSuites hotel getting ready to load up to head over to the wedding.

Here is a good shot of Tera and Spencer Gene outside of the church before the wedding.

Check out Tone-Loc, the father of the bride, Jimmy, and the Wilster hoisting up a few cocktails at the reception.

LISA & DAN'S BIG DAY

The much anticipated wedding of Lisa Marie and Dan the Man finally took place this past Saturday, October 8, 2005. Weddings never go without the tiny bumps in the road, and theirs was no exception. Fran Whited reported to the Publisher that "things went real smoothly, with the minor exception of a seating arrangement problem at the reception". Well, we better ask Dan, though. As Dan and Lisa stepped up on the dance floor for the once in a lifetime "first dance, they embraced and began swaying lovingly with one another...everything seemed normal until Dan was heard shouting "Fumble! Time - out!". As the mesmerized crowd watched to see what would happen next, Dan axplained "This is my mom's song" and he approached the DJ booth...Was I the only only who wondered if Dan was going to knock out the DJ? Of course he didn't, but surely the thought crossed his mind if only for a nanosecond.

Bottom-line: The wedding was beautiful and the entire family was very proud of our Lisa Marie. She did great. The family had a great time and was able to enjoy the evening tremendously. The rooms at Amerisuites were terrific and it was nice to have chance to visit with the Texarkana group before the wedding. It was the debut of Mr. Spence (Spencer Gene Jelly Bean). The Publisher did his share to make things interesting by blowing out his back while sitting on the floor and twisting awakardly while reaching for a quickly escaping Carson. It took a good 10 minutes to even get the Publisher back on his feet. Thanks to some drugs and Icy hot pads supplied by the wonderful Aunt Mary, The Publisher was able to get back to functioning status enough to even dance in a bit of a reserved fashion at the reception. Some observers also noted that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see John Whited getting his groove on with Ludicris and the Black Eyed Peas on the dance floor. The clan got to meet Laura's new love interest, whom John Whited pointed out has a striking resemblence to Opie Cunnigham. There was also a Keith Hernandez sighting, at least there was thought to be until it was discovered that the man was simply a husband of one of Lisa's teacher friends. Martinis were hoisted, laughter was shared, and the love was aboud.

Here are a couple of the better shots taken. The top one is Lisa and Dan being announced at the reception. The middle one is John Whited leading Fran and Nan down the aisle after the wedding was over. The bottom one is the bride and her lovely family at the reception.

There will be more photos of some other people in the next posting. But this one is dedicated to Lisa, her new hubby, and her immediate family.

HONORING MOM & TOM
















On Saturday October 1, we had the pleasure of celebrating birthdays for Mom & Tom. Let's see, I think that was #59 for mom (sorry to post online, ma) and #36 for Thomas Andrew. We feasted upon some chili and then chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream. Marc dropped a package addressed to Mom while passing out presents, so it was no surprise that when she opened it up, it was a beautiful coffee cup that had literally broken into five pieces. "Good thing that was Tom's present to Mom instead of ours" quipped the Publisher with tongue in cheek, of course. We watched Tom and Peyton Manning get their asses kicked by Curtis Martin and the New York Jets in Playstation 2, and then watched the first half of Napoleon Dynamite (Are you gonna eat your tots?) Jackson and Alex played quietly in Jackson's room most of the day, watching movies and playing legos. - It seems that they are both growing up a little bit and appeared to have settled down just a tad. Carson walked behind his walker for the first time, coincidently in front of the small audience.

The following is a contribution by Thomas A. Whited:

Dear Publisher,
Here’s a picture of Alex J. Whited and his friend Alexis C. Brown taken on Saturday 9/17. You may note that he has a bruise at the top of his nose, the result of a tumble he took in Wal-Mart 4 days earlier. Seems to be following in my footsteps. Also worth mentioning is the “ring” under his bottom lip… another similarity to some pictures of me when I was in grade school.
Sincerely,
T. Whited

This is another shot of Alex outside of Chuck E. Cheese's recently. Tom took this picture with his new digi-cam and sent it in. For those of you who have seen the movie Barfly, you may notice a slight rememblance. - Publisher, TWN

Labor Day at Cataract Falls

The beautiful weather on Labor Day gave us a great opportunity to have a picnic at Cataract Falls about 6 miles from our house. Jackson had never been down there and it had been years since Marc and Kim had been there despite it's proximity.

We had some sandwiches and then walked around the Falls stopping to give Jackson a chance to make a new fuzzy friend and then play on the playground equiptment. Jackson really enjoyed it, and we got a kick out of it because he kept referring to the water falls as the "water fountains".















Here is a shot of Carson on 9/1/05, at exactly 8 months old.


Please send emails to the Publisher at mkwhited@yahoo.com and included family news and events. Photos are especially welcomed!!!!

This is absolutely terrible...

This stuff that is going on down in the gulf area is mind boggling to me. I'm trying to understand what is going on down there and I cannot even begin to imagine it. Really puts things in another perspective similar to what 9/11 did, but the major difference is that 9/11 was in intentional act, whereas Katrina was a natural disaster. I camme across this blog from a guy living in the area. Somehow, he has been able to post regularly through the horrific ordeal and I thought I would post his site here:

http://www.johnstrain.blogspot.com/

Here is what I have seen on TV and read: Bodies are floating around in the streets, rotting. Tens and hundreds of thousands of people are suddenly homeless and without a way to get out of New Orleans, which is 80% underwater. People have been stuck on their roofs for 4 days. Civility is gone and people are in total survival mode. People have babies and small children in these conditions with no food to eat, water to drink, and a restroom to use. I mean this is horrible. Makes me never want to complain about a "bad" day again....

I guess I have been waiting for some big news in order to post a new article on here. That could be awhile if I keep expecting a huge event to report on. So I'll just post a commentary and some recent little tidbits of what's going on.

I just came in from cutting out some brush from the drainage ditch from the front of our property. You know how sometimes you let things go and the next thing you know you suddenly realize that you have let something get to the point of rediculous? Well, that's the deal with this brush out there. I mean, I have a hard enough time keeping up with basic yardwork such as mowing and weedeating, much less cutting down huge weeds/trees that are twice my height. The funny thing about it is that I have virtually no apprpriate tools for this project and ended up using this tiny hacksaw. After about 25 minutes of work, I had cleared out the largest growth and started feeling like I was going to pass out from exhaustion, so that's it for today. Not real sure what I'm going to do with the brush, probably throw it over the road into the woods over there.

Kim just completed her first week back to school since December. Monday is her first "real" day back, though, because the first week in Kindergarten at her school is just testing with the kids and meeting with the parents. Regular school days begin tomorrow. She really seems happy to be back, although it looks like she will have some challenging kids and may have to do without an aide this year. Jackson and Carson are adjusting pretty well to having a new sitter and we feel like we made the right choice with Sheila.

Other tidbits: Carson is getting his two top teeth now and has just started crawling regularly ather than the "belly flop"...Big Time Fantasy Football starts with the draft on August 31. This will be the fifth year for the Whited's fantasy league under the current format - John Whited of the Cincy Bears has the #1 overall pick....I just completed my eigth year of full-time employment with the Youth Services Bureau - I celebrated by rearranging my office...It has been reported that Billy Wilson has received medical bills for a "leg amputation" but apparently this is news to Billy...Jim Whited has been enjoying a new hobby of building birdhouses, so place your orders now...

Birfdays, Colts Camp, and mini-milestones

Last weekend the Whiteds got together to celebrate Kim's 32nd birthday and Jim's 59th. A delicious batch of spaghetti and meatballs were served by Juanette, as requested by Jim. The meal was terrific, although Juanette indicated that she was not happy with her soggy and limp garlic bread. The garlic bread was great, too. Jim received a Lowe's gift card, a Nascar t-shirt, and a round of golf at Clover Meadows. Kim received a scrapbooking kit, a Harry Potter book, some scrapbooking pens, and a book light. A great day.


That evening Marc, Jim and Jackson Cade headed over to Colts Camp to watch them have night practice. It was family night at camp and it turned out to be an all-time record attendance of 6,500 people. They stopped at Wal-Mart to get a Colts hat for autographs, and they had none - but they did have a Tennessee Vols hat. Marc thought that was great as long as they could land a Manning autograph for the second straight year. But that limited them to Manning, and after practice Marc and Jackson were within 5-6 feet of Peyton, but the security guard had to tell Manning to go inside because people were going nuts, pushing and shoving there way towards the front creating an unsafe situation with little kids around. So they came home empty handed on autographs but they did all get to meet linebacker Gary Brackett #58, shake his hand, and have a 5-minute conversation with him. It was cool.

Carson turned 7 months old on August first and this has been accompanied by some other little mini-milestones. He can now sit up on his own regularly, crawls all over the floor, and is starting to pull up on things. His legs are so dog-gone strong that this should be an easy transition. He is becoming more and more vocal with his babbling and has been experiencing some samples of some new fun foods like ice cream, cake, and popscicles. Healthly diet, huh.

The Wilson's Cruise

Here are some shots submitted to "TWN" by Aunt Mary after the Wilson's returned from their Caribbean cruise this month. Luckily, they were able to avoid the hurricane for the most part, but it caused some major airline problems for them when they were to return to Louisville. The weary travelers made it to the Whited's in Cincy on Sunday morning after the Wilster had an unexpected and unwelcome encounter with a state trooper along the way. At least the cruise was great. Hey, did anyone else notice that the Wilster is pimped out like Regis in that suit with the yellow shirt/tie combo?

VACATION AT THE SOARING EAGLE

The Whited family just returned from their summer vacation. They decided to keep it simple and not travel too far with the little one. They rented the Soaring Eagle cabin in Brown county, right on the Monroe County reservoir. As always, enough things ocurred to keep the vacation plenty interesting and fun, but bordering on the brink of a fiasco. On Thursday morning, everybody got up and got ready to head out to Brown County state park for some swimming, some hiking, and a picnic. While loading up Carson in his carseat, Marcus dropped the keys to the cabin in Carson's lap, and immediately scooped them back up and put them in his pocket. But just before they got into the van, Marcus realized that there was one of the two cabin keys missing from the ring, and the loop was disattached enough for a key to have fallen off. They looked everywhere. After 20 minutes of stressful searching, Kim found the key under Carson's butt. She had no idea that Marcus had dropped the keys in the youngster's lap, so she was very puzzeled with her discovery. Right after the big sigh of relief, there was another interesting turn of events. As they heading up the very steep driveway to head to the park, the van got stuck on the wet gravel. It was rather treacherous because it was on a curve and the edge of a curve was a very drastic cliff. Marcus suggested that Kim get the two boys out of the van and walk back down to the cabin while daddy backed the van carefully down the driveway. "The way things were going that morning, I just wanted to be extra safe" said the stressed driver. Everything turned out fine and they were able to get the van up the driveway on the second attempt, but mommy had to walk all the way up the driveway with the two boys since daddy drove up there by himself. Things went well at the park, but a mistake was made when they decided to try hike what was described an an "EASY" trail of less than a mile. Daddy pushed Carson in his stroller and got stuck every other step on a root or rock or anything else. They also had to carry the stoller down and then up an enourmous set of steps. This was certainly an indication to the grown ups just how out of shape they are.


Just as it was time to leave on Saturday morning, there was room for just one more dramatic event. Eevn after being extra careful to prevent any more major problems - it was not avoided. It took forever to get the van loaded back up with the stuff, but after doing so, Marcus and Kim took one last "walk-thru" around the cabin to make sure they got everything. Somehow, they both missed the digital camera and two water bottles that they had left out in plain view on the kitchen table. They locked the door and headed out. About 5 seconds after the door was pulled shut, Marcus asked Kim if she got the camera off the table and of course the answer was no. Luckily, after some freaking out on daddy's behalf, they were able to call the owners from a neighbors phone and were told where they could find an extra key hidden outside. "At least we were not locked outside naked" Kim pointed out, looking at the bright side.







Despite the unnecessary drama, the stay at the cabin was terrific. The cabin itself was really nice and very comfortable and cozy. They got to see two bald eagles, many deer, and a flock of wild turkeys. Marc and Kim got to enjoy the hot tub every evening after the youngsters hit the sheets. There was also plenty of exciting billiards action, but don't ask Kim who won the pool contests. The Whited's also befriended two cute kitties during their stay. "I liked meeting the kitty cats and taking care of them" said Jackson.

https://www.moondancevacationhomes.com/soaringeagle.cfm#

Lisa's Big Rock

Lisa and Dan made news last week when her engagement ring was featured in an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer. This photo was found on the "front page" of the paper's website on Thursday, July 7. Click the link below to see the article.

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050707/LIFE/507070329

Editor's note: Way to make all us other husbands look bad, Dan! Thanks to Laura Whited for passing the info along.