This Christmas my grocery lists have been written bilingually. I hear carols hummed and sung in two different languages. We got to see two sisters over the moon excited about an enormous Christmas light display. I actually managed to take a picture of all the kids dressed up on Christmas…

When your children make post Christmas pancakes and a drinking glass meets the frying pan . . .   (At least it looks like a happy smile?)

This came home from school two days ago. So completely random.  So completely him.  He thinks he can keep the hippo in the garden shed.

The oldest sister we are hosting is SO ridiculously excited about Christmas.  I may never have seen a living human so excited about the holiday in my whole life!  Wonderfully festive signs of all sizes like the one above are hanging from all sorts of surfaces in in the house.…

One of the girls we are hosting is a checkers expert.  She has won many checkers competitions, and believe me, I’ve pretty much given up on the idea of ever being able to beat her.  She’s 10 moves ahead of me at all times!  She plays international checkers, or international…

Do you like to people watch?  I highly recommend hanging out at the International Arrivals door at the airport.  Last week the two girls from Latvia arrived!  We had to be at the airport quite early, and it was a long, hard wait because we were ridiculously excited for them…

A few years ago my mom gifted me the nativity set that my Grandma Edna made her.  When I was growing up, the nativity set had a special place at Christmas time on a little cabinet in our kitchen that we called the dry sink.  We stood on tiptoe and…

The Saturday after Thanksgiving the small cousins were napping and the big cousins went to the beach.  It was a terrific afternoon.   There’s never a lack of expression with this crew.   Selfies were in order.  Cousin Janzie went rock hopping and tried not to get wet.  She was…

I love these pictures of my eldest niece, who made me an Auntie for the first time ever, and her dad.

This past weekend I was blessed to be able to travel all by myself to the other edge of my state to get together with two of my very best friends ever.  We went to the Concordia Christmas concert on Friday night, and then talked ALL weekend!  We stayed up…