A week ago I flew to Chicago to meet our host daughter who is back visiting us through Project 143.  My flight arrived early in the day at the airport, and her flight arrived very late in the day, which left me a whole day without an agenda.  I…

My electric pencil sharpener bit the dust.  It had been on the fritz for quite some time, so when it finally died I didn’t feel guilty about rushing to my computer to purchase a new one.  When it arrived, I plugged it in and promptly sharpened at least 300 pencils.…

First, I will just tell you that this was the most fun trip to cut down Christmas trees in the forest that we’ve ever had in our decade plus a few years since we’ve been cutting down Christmas trees.  There was a light snowfall in the morning which made the…

Since his birthday falls right around Thanksgiving (this year it was two days later), the cousins were here to help celebrate!  There were bagels with cream cheese for breakfast, and I was considering forgoing the bathtub tradition but those cousins insisted that it was necessary, so we did it! After…

It’s been a long time since I’ve needed to memorize choir music.  In college we rehearsed each day and memorized everything, but in the high quality choirs I have sung in for the past fifteen years or more, we have had long rehearsals each week, but only once a week.…

Grandma Kathy always saves the comic section from the Sunday paper and gifts a stack of them to the kidlets when she visits.  It’s such a simple act of thoughtful love, and the kidlets just love sitting down and reading these.

It was chaos and fun, and more chaos!  I don’t know how Cousin Elizabeth made it into almost every single one of the Thanksgiving pictures, except, she really is so precious and irresistible, that it doesn’t really surprise me!  There were many family members that my camera did not manage…

Between the people that live here and the parts of Dr. Peds’ family who were visiting for Thanksgiving weekend, we had more than twenty people coming and going many times over multiple days.  Amidst all the big and profound things I was thankful for this Thanksgiving, I was also especially…

The Banana chose to take orchestra in middle school.  Since she’s been playing the violin for a while, her teachers have been having her help other students who have their instruments in hand for the first time figure out how to hold and play their violins.  Beginning orchestra moves pretty…

I like the month of November a lot, but this November has been more than slightly chaotic!  Goodness gracious.  I can hardly believe we are two thirds through the month already.  We seem to have flown from one stressful, out-of-the-ordinary event to the next, all month long. This week we…