Krieger Christmas 2023

Krieger Christmas 2023

Merry Christmas from Anna and Long Cat! We had such an awesome Christmas, and if this blog is serving as my memory book, that is what I want to remember. Christmas was awesome. Just look at how great it was! David got a balaclava! (He also does a thing that he got from Tom — he

Read More

Our Vancouver adventure 2023

Our Vancouver adventure 2023

By: Mary Last summer our cousins who live in Vancouver, Canada came to visit us in Virginia! Ellie, Abram, John, and Gabby came without their parents. Their visit was delayed by a few weeks due to a COVID outbreak, and then our trip to Kings Dominion got almost got rained out, and then there was

Read More

Merry Krieger Christmas 2022

Merry Krieger Christmas 2022

Merry Christmas! This Christmas will go down as the one that was bitterly cold — when the temps got down so low that we had to put a heat lamp in our chicken coop. Not as cold as the North Pole, though, because Santa and his reindeer had no problem making deliveries. Before the kids

Read More

Deer Valley 2022

Deer Valley 2022

Every summer when we go to Deer Valley, people ask us what it is. Short answer: it’s a family camp! Or, as I like to say, “it’s like summer camp but your mom and dad are there.” Perhaps a better description is that it’s like the camp in Marvelous Mrs. Maisel except instead of a

Read More

The great cousin visit of 2022

The great cousin visit of 2022

Eight awesome cousins, together for the first time since 2019. 2019!! We haven’t seen these guys in THREE years. For anyone that’s a long time, but for a kid it’s a loooooong time. It is, without exaggeration, 3/4 of Anna’s entire life. A looooooong time. When your cousins live in a different country, you do

Read More

Mom’s first sleepaway camp

Mom’s first sleepaway camp

At the end of June my two big kids went to their very first sleepaway camp. Emphasis on very first because, unless I’m forgetting something, I don’t think my kids have ever done any sort of significant camp…not even the day-kind. Mary went to kindergarten camp and, for David? Does swim team count? We are SO LAME.

Read More

A is for Anna! T is for Thomas! S is for Smug!

A is for Anna! T is for Thomas! S is for Smug!

MOD Pizza, Starbucks, Richmond Lager, Surge Adventure Park. Know what they all have in common? They all have Anna’s letter — the letter A. I know this because Anna shouts enthusiastically whenever she sees her letter. “MOM! GUESS WHAT I SEE!” she shouts from the back seat, straining against her straps to make her point.

Read More

Easter weekend 2022

Easter weekend 2022

We celebrated Holy Week and Easter weekend by being very, very busy. That always happens, though, doesn’t it? If normal weeks are busy then holiday weeks will feel extra busy. I feel a temptation to chastise myself, “I’m doing this wrong. We need to slow down, simplify, take in the season.” But I also know

Read More

The Kriegers take Universal Studios

The Kriegers take Universal Studios

At the beginning of the month the Krieger family skipped town for an incredible trip to Universal Studios in Orlando. This trip was the perfect late-winter getaway — a mix of sunshine, butter beer, and cousins. We saw dinosaurs, ate hot pretzels, and walked an average of 10 miles a day. By bedtime the kids

Read More

Snow kids

Snow kids

My oldest kid is 10, and recently I’ve found myself in a phase of constantly looking for things that will inspire him to play. He can get a bit bored at playgrounds these days, and I can’t remember the last time he dumped all the bins in our playroom, looking for just the right plastic

Read More

Christmas 2021

Christmas 2021

Merry, merry Christmas from the Kriegers! Merry Christmas, especially, from Anna’s bedhead and Thomas’s cowlick, and four kids who, when they find out that all kids aren’t forced to wait at the top of the stairs for their parents to get a cup of coffee and walk around aimlessly for a few minutes. Our Christmas

Read More

Halloween 2021

Halloween 2021

Let this go down in history as the first year I’ve ever rallied everyone for a family costume. I’ve always loved family costumes, but I never fully respected them until I had kids. So many opinions to manage! Mercurial! Unpredictable! Plus, I was just so, so tired for so, so many years. Now I’m still

Read More

Deer Valley YMCA — 2021

Deer Valley YMCA — 2021

We just got back from family vacation, and I honest-to-goodness barely have time to mine through the piles of laundry we brought home before school starts tomorrow. The vacation-to-school boomerang is a lot to take in. I can’t figure out if it’s better for me to be busy — that way I have less time

Read More

Summer night lights

Summer night lights

Here’s a thing you may or may not know about our family. When it comes to our kids’ bedtime, we do not mess around. We are lenient about almost everything, but not bedtime. Our kids go to bed at 7:30 p.m. every night. Even the almost-10-year-old. It’s a hard line that we hold because, if

Read More

COVID-19, one year later

COVID-19, one year later

I keep getting Timehop reminders of what life looked like one year ago. The photos are all sunny and happy captures of the kids in the backyard against a backdrop of daffodils and an uncharacteristically mild spring. With every photo I think — wow, we had no idea…I’m glad we had no idea.  Also, my  hair

Read More

The best snow day

The best snow day

Shout out to everyone who lives in a moderate climate, waking up to a blanket of snow, beginning the early morning chore of unearthing snow bibs and waterproof gloves for children who CANNOTWAITANOTHERSECOND to go outside. Since it only occasionally snows, all the snow gear is scattered here and there. Half of it is outgrown

Read More

Hurricane Zeta

Hurricane Zeta

When school started in September, Tom sat down with the kids and created a schedule for them. The hope was to reclaim some of the structure that had been lost in the floundering, chaotic months of the quarantine. The schedule includes a mandatory hour of outside time each day. Being the supportive spouse I am,

Read More

Our surprise (!!!) beach vacation

Our surprise (!!!) beach vacation

Sometime in July I started feeling the walls close in. It’s 2020, I’m sure you can relate. In fact, I probably felt like that even earlier than July, I just didn’t realize it. It was hot, school was on hold for the foreseeable future, and our routine of having no routine was feeling claustrophobic. Since

Read More

The birthday countdown

The birthday countdown

Two days until David’s ninth birthday. Not that anyone is counting. At the beginning of the quarantine, when the kids’ school was closed, I made a paper countdown to Easter. We were all excited to see the holiday creep closer. For me it was a secret countdown to when this would all be over and

Read More

Worship in a facemask
Our return to church in the midst of COVID-19

Worship in a facemask  Our return to church in the midst of COVID-19

In the past few weeks, my church has been slowly and cautiously resuming in-person worship services. In an effort to love and protect attendees, and out of deference to authorities,  there is a litany of strange, “never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine this” precautions. Once everything started shutting down, church was the

Read More

COVID-19 Quarantine Week ten

COVID-19 Quarantine Week ten

What do you miss? This is something I think about a lot. We’re 10 weeks into this and I’m no longer even considering things like soccer practice or our gym membership. It occurred to me this week that the thing I miss is being in relationship without fear. Remember running into a friend at the grocery store

Read More

Meet the chicks!
By: Mary

Meet the chicks!  By:  Mary

Note: This is Mary’s second blog. You can read the first one here. I took these photos about two weeks ago, when the chicks were still cute little balls of fluff.  They’ve feathered out a lot in the past two weeks and look a lot more reptilian, but the kids adore them all the same. 

Read More

1 2 3 4 6