Last year, right around this time of year, David sat down at the table with construction paper, scissors, and glue, and independently handcrafted a valentine for his best friend. I was really, really impressed. I hadn’t given much thought to the valentines he was going to give out to his class, but right then and
On January 1, I completed my annual tradition of Googling the correct way to write “New Year’s resolutions.” Capital N, capital Y, apostrophe s, lowercase r. Did you know you can do that? You can Google punctuation and grammar rules. I’ve worked alongside a lot of copy editors and I promise you that most of
I was grumpy all day Christmas Eve. The kids were acting like children, how dare they. They were overly excited and a little tired and do you know what excited, tired children do? They take the cushions off the couch even though their mother told them not to. They ping pong between being silly and
Playing Santa is, without a doubt, one of the most fun gigs I’ve ever had. Shopping, wrapping, imagining the joy when they open the gift. It is all so very wonderful. Sometime in November, Tom’s mom, Peggy, called me from Costco. She was shopping, and there was one MaryEllen American Girl doll left. Should she
Now that I’m an adult, I often think back to events from my childhood and I realize I never had any sort of appreciation for the work my parents did to make them happen. Pumpkin carving fits squarely in that category. Looking back to my own childhood, I do not remember my parents finding time
Thomas had a field trip to the pumpkin patch last week. It was a cold day, so I packed two jacket options for each child, hats, and a blanket just in case. A few days earlier my phone’s camera broke, so as I packed I made a mental note to ask one of the adults to take
Mary Virginia doesn’t approve of my day-to-day look. T-shirt, ponytail, no makeup, usually un-showered. She’s kind about it, but she wouldn’t mind seeing me put a little more effort in my appearance. Maybe a clean shirt from time to time, a swipe of lip gloss wouldn’t kill me. It’s fine, I don’t pick anything that
A few days before Easter, as soon as we had nice enough weather to be outside, we dyed Easter eggs. I marched all the kids outside and told them to sit at the table and wait while I made several trips inside to get everything. Asking kids to WAIT and NOT TOUCH is a big
So thankful we finally had a few warm days before Easter, so I could keep up with my six-year tradition of dressing my kids like rabbits and taking pictures in front of our neighbor’s landscaping. I actually had four pairs of bunny ears, even though I am completely realistic about this sort of thing —
Our first Christmas as a family of six was exactly as wonderful, memorable, and sleep-deprived as I expected. Reading the Christmas story before opening presents. The first peek at presents. Anna turned six weeks old the day before Christmas. Did you know that baby fussiness peaks at six weeks? Anna knew! We went to Christmas