Rylee’s Baby Blessing

On November 3rd, Rylee was given a baby blessing by her father, Anthony.  In other religions, this is comparable to “christening” or “baptizing” them.  Although different in nature, it’s still sacred and important in nature.  She is given a name to be known by God and on the records of the church as “Rylee Victoria Callison.”

I tried to remember a few things that stood out in my mind after her baby blessing:

• Peacemaker and strength to family
• Determination to stand for what she believes to be true
• Strength to grow to beautiful women she was intended to be
• Inquisitive mind to seek spiritual and temporal knowledge
• Patience of being youngest child with both siblings and parents
• Ability to bear weaknesses and triumphant in strengths
• Bestowed with a deep heritage and desire to continue in the Faith

Now a few months later, the number one thing that I remember and am grateful for every day.  Her patience!!!  She has such a sweet demeanor.  Even today, she’s as sick as can be with the worst stomach bug, and you wouldn’t know it if it weren’t for the fact that she’s been throwing up everywhere.  Nothing phases her. She’s still all smiles. As I was feeding her tonight, she was drifting off to sleep and started laughing/giggling as I rubbed her tummy.  She’s as sweet and happy as can be.   Not that she never cries, and not that she’s happy 100% of the time, but she’s generally happy.  And she’s not afraid to show it off by smiling and giggling.  Seriously, I live for these smiles!!!

The other thing that stands out in the deep heritage she has been bestowed with.  As we were surrounded at church from both sets of grandparents, siblings, cousins, everyone, I felt of the richest blessings I have because of our faithful parents and other ancestors who have paved the way.

From my dad’s side of the family:

This blessing gown was made by my Grandma Knick and is the same blessing gown I was blessing in years ago by my father.  It’s so simple yet elegant, fancy and ornate, yet the look is timeless.  And honestly, these pictures of Rylee remind me of my Grandma Knick’s porcelain dolls that she use to make.  If I didn’t know any better, I swear Rylee was one of her dolls posing in her pictures. 

Similar to the the porcelain doll and matching dresses she made for me years ago:

She passed away when I was a child so there’s only a handful of memories I have of her, and her hand-crafting this porcelain doll and stitching matching dresses -- especially for me -- definitely ranks high of the list.

One of the other favorite stories I loved hearing was about her conversion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

I’ve asked me Dad to re-tell the story about the dream she had in the hospital, where the Savior appeared to her, and asked her why she wouldn’t join His Church.  At first she tried to dismiss it, but then later her roommate asked who she had been talking with, and then there was no denying what she had seen and heard.  Please read  his full account here.

From Grandma Knick, I hope Rylee not only inherits her artistic and creative abilities, but also her her passion and tenacity to to challenge the status quo to reach higher ground.  She really was decades ahead of her time in all that she did and believed!

From my mom, Rylee got her middle name – Victoria.  My mom’s name is Vicki Lynn Knickerbocker, but she’s always loved the name Victoria…so it was an easy, close substitute :)

Four Generations of Matriarchs

My mom is one of the most Christ-like people I know.  She’s endured much in this life in terms of physical pain – but I feel like it’s always made her that much closer to her Savior.  She has sacrificed a lot to raise up 8 children who were and still are her entire world.  She’d do anything for her children, and still has the ability to only see the best in them.  She has a huge heart and can recall countless stories of her helping near strangers off the street who were in dire need, inviting them into our home and loving them the same.   Time and time again, despite being “used” or “taken advantage” of, she loved them and wanted to help.   From her, I hope Rylee inherits her Christ-like love of all people.

From Anthony’s family – She inherited her Grammy Callison’s good looks :)  On the day Rylee was born, she looked just like Anthony’s mom, Trish, to me.  And she still does—as well as his sisters – Melinda and Kristie – and their daughters, Cassidy and Madison.  But mostly still Trish.  From her Grammy Callison, I hope she inherits her unwavering faith and service.  Trish is always the most giving and willing to person I know.   She’d also sacrifice anything for her children, and more especially, her grandchildren.  She only has the kindest things to say about everyone and it shows in all that she does.  She’s spent more time caring and taking care of others over the past years than she has in her own home.   When I had Rylee, she was here for 3 weeks to help, and then again a few months later when I had surgery.  While her and my mother are both very different, they share a lot of the same character traits.   She’s very Christ-like, loving, and patient, all characteristics that I hope Rylee inherits.

So as you can see, Rylee has a rich heritage of faithful members of the church who love and serve God with all their heart, might, mind and strength.  As her mother, I hope I can teach her to do the same, just as our parents have taught us.

Grandma & Grandpa Knick’s Conversion Story

Sometime between Paul and Jenny being born (1957 to 1958), my parents joined the Church. I know this, because Jenny was the only one of our four siblings that was born into the church. We were living at 9 Nectar La, Levittown, Pa, Dad was commuting to Philadelphia, he worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad as a purchasing agent, Mom was a stay at home mom. Her college, teaching, and dormitory director experiences were years ahead of her.

One of my first childhood memories surrounding the church was going to Sunday School in the Trenton NJ YMCA with Dad. Mom didn’t come. But eventually she did, and they joined the church. I remember their baptism, and I remember getting a child’s blessing, even though I would have been between 4 and 5 years old at the time. Don’t ask me what was said, obviously one of the missionaries probably gave the blessing. Not many people can say they remember the child blessing they were given, it usually happens to newborns. But with convert families, they’re given to children in those families who haven’t turned 8 years of age. I remember the Trenton Chapel being built, but it would have had to be before I started school the fall of 1958.

It wasn’t until after my mission that Mom told me her conversion story at Christmas one year. We had the missionaries over, something they started doing when I went on my mission. And she read her conversion story to them. Ken read it again years later when we were visiting Buffalo to Elder Mortenson, one of a pair of elders who had stayed in our home at 3223 Brunswick Ave. between 1959 and 1963 (+/-), who was then the President of the Rochester, NY mission, I believe. I’ve looked to see if
anyone has a copy of it, and I haven’t any luck, so this is the second-hand version.

Dad was the first to want to join the church. He had heard the missionaries on a street corner in Philadelphia, and had the discussions. Mom I think sat in on the discussions, but didn’t want any part of joining the church. Dad did, and I think this is when he took me to church in Trenton when Mom didn’t want to go. And Dad would not join the Church without Mom.

Mom had told us what she knew about the church was what she learned from Mr. Spears, a history teacher at Collingdale HS who was also my Problems of Democracy teacher my senior year. He had summed up the church rather succinctly: “Old Joe Smith wanted more than one wife, so he started his own religion.” That’s her version, I never did hear that directly from Mr. Spears.

Mom’s stance was radically changed about joining the church after an experience she had while in the hospital as I said, sometime between when Paul (April, 1957) and Jenny was born (June 1958). She was having some sort of surgery, I can’t remember what the surgery was for, but while coming out of the
anesthesia, she said she had a dream where the Savior appeared to her, and asked her why she wouldn’t join His Church. She said she didn’t really believe it was the Savior, but he asked her several
times, and she said she thought it was just the anesthesia.

You know how you are when you’re coming out of surgery, you’re in and out of consciousness, so she came out after this “dream”, thinking she had been having delusions, seeing Jesus. Come on, who would really believe that, right?

It was then that her roommate in the hospital came in and asked Mom, “Who had been in the room?”

Mom was startled. “What do you mean, who had been in the room?”

The roommate replied, “Oh, I thought the doctor or someone was in here, and felt something important was going on, and I shouldn’t disturb whatever was happening, and you needed your privacy for a few minutes. So I didn’t come in the room, and waited until I was sure they were gone.”

She had Mom’s full and immediate attention. Something important had been going on, and Mom dwelled on what she had experienced, and got the feeling that she had actually been asked by the Savior why she hadn’t joined the Church. So, if that was the case, then she wasn’t going to have much of an excuse come Judgment Day if she didn’t go ahead and join. After all, what would you do if you knew the Savior asked you something, and you didn’t thereafter go out immediately and do it?

Needless to say, they joined the Church as I stated, they both served in various positions throughout their lives. Dad was either Financial Clerk or Ward Clerk for any number of years, and Mom either taught Primary (I remember her being my Blazer leader (forerunner to Webelos / Valiant, I think) when I turned 12, did stints as Relief Society teacher or President later.

I can’t let this story go without also telling of our trip to the Temple. Prior to the Washington, DC Temple being dedicated in 1975, the nearest Temple to Philadelphia was Salt Lake City. The DC temple had been announced probably in ’68 or ’69, so we knew it was coming, but didn’t know when it would be built, nor when it would be completed. I can probably count on one or two fingers the people I knew a half-generation older than I was who made that trip to Salt Lake, either for their own endowments or
to get married. Tony March and Richard Lindsey were the only names I remember.

We had a family home evening the fall of my Senior year, which would have put that in 1970, where we committed to going to the Temple. Mom said it was the one wish she had, and that it was going to take a lot of work on their part to be temple-worthy, but she was committed to doing it.

Up until that time, Dad had been driving a VW Beetle, if you can believe it, and that car was obviously too small for four teenagers to make such a trip (it was too small to go to Church in, too, but that’s another story). Sometime that winter, they bought a VW bus. The following summer, we made plans to drive to Salt Lake and onto Logan, Utah for my parents to receive their endowments and for us to be sealed as a family.

We were planning to leave on a Friday afternoon. Mom was going to drive to a convenient location, meet Dad after work, he was getting dropped off by a co-worker, it would save time and give an early jump on traffic. So the car was loaded up the night before, and off we went on the first really long vacation of my childhood. July 16, 1971.

Mom didn’t realize it but somewhere between home and picking up Dad, the VW threw a fan belt, and overheated and literally destroyed 3 of the 4 cylinders of the air-cooled engine. Because of the orientation of the dashboard and driving into the afternoon sun, she hadn’t seen the engine warning light come on, and had continued to drive. When we finally noticed something was wrong, we stopped about a couple miles short of where we were picking up Dad. Mom was beside herself. Ken and I hitchhiked
up to where Dad was waiting, told him what had happened, he hitch-hiked back, Ken and I started walking back. Dad called Grandpop Knick, he came and got us all, and took us back to the house in Collingdale.

Mom was beside herself. She had ruined the car, she had ruined whatever chance we had of going to the temple. She sobbed the whole way home and went upstairs to her bedroom, and spent the night there. It was ONLY time I had seen Mom where the world had appeared to beat her. Never before, never again since. Even through her bout with cancer, she wasn’t that type.

Dad did the only thing he could do. First, he got the car towed to a VW dealership, and got the repair work started. Meanwhile, he started to look into ways we could get to Salt Lake and Logan, everything from planes, trains, buses, etc. But in the end, he said, the car still needed to be fixed, and that any other expense would put the Temple trip out of reach. So, the plan was to wait for the repairs to be completed in 2-3 days, and then hoof it to SLC in it.

Four cylinders had to be replaced. Three of the pistons were toast. Dad patiently told the dealer’s mechanics to hurry, but do it right. And we set off for SLC sometime Tuesday or Wednesday, at the latest. I don’t know how we did it. In order to break the repaired engine in properly, we had to drive at 55 mph when the speed limit in those days was 80 mph. It took forever. 

Intermediate stops were deleted, remember driving past the Arch in St. Louis (instead of stopping and going in it), driving by
Kaufman Stadium during a night ball game, staying in a hotel west of town, and in Denver, before arriving in SLC on Friday. Saturday was July 24, Pioneer Day, the parade, and on Monday, July 26, 1971,we went to the Temple in Logan, Utah, and were sealed as a family.

Mom’s tenacity to get us headed to the Temple in the first place was never questioned. But what she didn’t realize the trial of her faith that would come in order to accomplish the goal. Thanks to my Dad, he was able to see a way around a pretty big hurtle. When you join the church as young adults, with young children, both the first from either side of their families, a lot of change is required.

Mom’s experience in the hospital in all likelihood had something to do in effecting that change. It takes that kind of fortitude and will power to follow through onto eternal goals. Something had to be behind the motivation, right?

But one thing I do know: I, too, have been born of goodly parents. And Mom’s conversion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ never, ever waivered, even under some intense challenges.

Written by Chuck Knickerbocker (my father)

Snowed In!!

This year, I got my Christmas wish.  A WHITE CHRISTMAS!! 

There’s just something about newly fallen snow that I love.

Maybe it brings me back to my childhood days where sledding and skiing were just a part of winter, and there was never a question of whether we’d have a white Christmas as all winter long there’d be tons and tons of snow.

Maybe its how something so simple and mundane, like the views outside my windows, can become absolutely breathtaking when covered by the freshly fallen snow. I think it’s also symbolic of our Savior, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas, and how each of us an become just as pure and beautiful with the touch of His love.

And I had just been complaining about how December was flying by way too fast, and how much I’d love to have more time at home with my family to do all our favorite Christmas-y things.  Like baking.  And snuggling up to some of our favorite Christmas movies.

And I got just what I was hoping for.   One weekend tons of snow poured down and everything was cancelled.  Even church.  So we stayed home, and loved it!

Eventually, we ventured outside and played, and played, and played.  And we went sledding!!! 

The sun was setting and the views of the sky were splendid.

But it was also FREEZING cold!!! Brooke was NOT a fan, not at all.  She’d be laughing hysterically on the way down…but that was it.  Everything else in between, she’d be crying and whining. 

But not Tanner.  He LOVED every second.

And yes, even the wipe outs.  Thanks Uncle Brendan!!!

Crash Course with Uncle Brendan

Thankfully, round two was smooth sailing!

Smooth sledding

And these pics bring a smile to my face.  Seriously, doesn’t it  make you wish you were a little kid again?!?

And everyone else was having a grand-ole time too.  And you can’t go sledding without attempting to make a train.  The first few attempts were complete wrecks, but after a few adjustments…

Train-wreck

Quincy was adorable and having a blast!  She’s such a fun, spunky little girl.  Here’s to hoping this will be Brooke next year!

And even myself, I went down one time.  That’s about as much as my bottom can handle :)

Fall Festivities

So I’m still playing catch up…

Here’s the fun things we did this fall…on top of having a baby, my brother’s wedding festivities, and celebrating Halloween and Thanksgiving.  Whew…

The Pumpkin Patch

The search for the great pumpkin commenced at one of our new favorite KC traditions – pumpkin patches!  With hayrides and fresh popped kettle corn, who can resist?

Tanner found a cool multi-color pumpkin that was just perfect

Well, Brooke, I’m pretty sure she had NO clue what we were doing at a pumpkin patch.  Her job was just to look cute :)

Although I was blown away by how much she’s changed…seriously…just take a look!

The kids also did a corn maze that had a fun look-out tower and slide to go down.  They were so excited, you’d think these kids had never seen a slide before :)

Rylee also came along, she didn’t leave the comfort of her car seat and stayed all bundled up.  At home, she had several adorable Halloween outfits, but neither lasted more than 5 minutes after her soaking through them.  #milkaholic

Pumpkin Carving

Pumpkin carving is always a family affair.  But Anthony has the awesome fine-motor skills so we put those money-making dentistry hands to work.  And this year, even Grammy was in town to join in the festivities too, helping clean out the seeds so we could roast them.

Tanner desperately wanted a power ranger pumpkin face…and that’s exactly what he got.  Except if you ask my brother Lance…

Katelynn and Scarlett also joined us…

But I’m still not quite sure what Brooke was up to…

My mom caught up on some cuddles with Rylee

And we snapped a four-generation photo while we could!

Deanna Rose Farmstead

We visit this place in the spring, summer, and fall – but the fall is my favorite.  My mom and grandparents came along with us, which was awesome considering it was one of the first times I ventured out of my house after having Rylee. 

Papa told all sorts of stories from growing up on a farm.  And he actively engaged with the kids doing all sorts of things – like mining for hidden gems amongst the sand, catching/releasing baby fish, feeding baby goats a bottle. 

Feeding chickens ,

And Brooke waving hello to the baby goats.  She LOVED them!

And Avery and Tanner got a glimpse of what milking a cow would be like.

And while everyone else was going on the hayride, Brooke and I playing in the secret garden.  There’s really nothing secret about it, but we pretended it was :)

And even more exciting, there was a kitten that didn’t want to leave the comfort of my stroller. I admit, I’m not an animal fan, and I was NOT excited about that kitten being so close to my newborn maybe. Several people later…we got it to hop out.

But this was nothing compared to what happened later.  I parked my stroller as we were feeding the goats, and a full grown animal with horns (okay, I really should know the name) reached over the fence and started licking the tray with leftover goodies.  And then helped themselves the the juice box.  All while baby Rylee was asleep in the next seat over.  Yuck!!! 

Haunted House

For family night, we constructed one of these foam houses.  It served to be the perfect hideout for his Lego guys the next day…

Brooke’s only mission was to try to destroy it…so it finally got put up high. Sorry, Lego guys, maybe next year!

Halloween Parties

We had so many Halloween parties it was a little ridiculous.  But for school, Tanner decided at the last minute he didn’t want to be Darth Vader and instead dressed up like a Pirate. 

Eat yummy snacks (well, kinda), Tanner wasn’t a fan of the white-chocolate covered Twinkie…and I can’t say I blame him.

Make another fun Jack-o-latern!

And he got to be on a team with his BFF, Gage, who I hear so much about!  And these two actually one too.  Aren’t they so stinkin cute!!!

How I Became a Pirate – Play

Tanner has a small fascination with pirates.  So when I heard they were making a play out of one of his favorite books, “How I Became a Pirate”, we just had to go.  It was a mommy-son date and we loved it!

Outdoors

But the best part about fall is being outside.  We had some beautiful days and enjoyed the picturesque leaves turning colors every where around us, and out the front door.

True story—My brother Lance came over to help us mow the lawn.  Tanner followed behind him with his lawn mower, but eventually tired of pushing it, but still followed him around.  And when uncle Lance took of his shirt, guess who else did??

And one of my favorite pics, Papa and Tanner, swinging side by side.  Folks, life doesn’t get any happier than that!!!