Last week we had parent conferences with Sam’s teacher. She told us that Sam was a “good communicator.” That he is. He loves to chat with anyone. His favorite question for grown-ups (after thousands of other questions) is: Do you know EVERYTHING? Excellent communication strategy. Keeps them talking every time. Another of Sam’s dominant personality...Continue Reading
This Saturday was our annual pumpkin-patch visit. Our family and every other family in our community, that is. I got a shot of each of our kids with their pumpkins. Those pictures are each worth a thousand words–about their personalities, their pumpkin-picking strategies, and themselves. Nate: he picked out a tiny pumpkin (not pictured). Too...Continue Reading
Halloween is in the air around here. The picture is of Catie making a orange-and-black chain with ten links. She’ll peel off a black or an orange everyday until we get to the Spooky Day. Sam is busy making an orange pumpkin with (you guessed it) a black smile. Nate is right outside the frame...Continue Reading
This video takes place at the corner of Westheimer and Highway 6. If you’re from Houston, you know that means the corner of sketchy massage parlor and should-be-illegal smoke house. Why were we there? And why was Elisabeth singing praise songs? We were there for Souper Salad’s Sunday night Kids Eat Free! special. And Elisabeth...Continue Reading
A poem for Sam, who took the road less travelled by on Saturday morning… …when Daddy took the road more traveled by and ran a 5K on the trail behind our neighborhood. Sam, grumpy he couldn’t also run a 5K on that well-worn path, sulked around the woods (made yellow by our recent drought). And,...Continue Reading
This was a beautiful weekend in Houston, Texas. I felt better than I have in a long time. The kids were anxious for an adventure. A friend invited us to the zoo. I’ve never been to the zoo before. If I went as a kid, I was too young to remember it. When I became...Continue Reading
Nate has a best friend (what we call a BFF around here). Like Nate, she gets around on all fours. She loves to hang out on the steps. Like Nate, she likes the bird’s eye view this perch provides (life on all fours can be rather…short). When she sees one of us eating a snack,...Continue Reading
Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved country music. Growing up in Texas in the ‘70s and ‘80s, there was plenty of it on the radio, on friends’ cassettes, and live at dance halls like Gilleys. Not that I ever went to Gilleys, but the performers there recorded enough songs to fill an entire radio...Continue Reading
This is a picture of us not in Michigan. This is us not at the wedding of a dear friend. We had planned to go. We had planned to package up the entire family and fly into Detroit (a couple hours from the wedding), rent a car, stop at an orchard and pick apples and...Continue Reading
Look closely at this picture…you can click on it to help you see what’s happening here. I’ll fill in the details. The sixteen-year-old across the street just got a Mustang G-something for his birthday. According to M, this is a sixteen-year-old’s dream car. When I turned sixteen, I desperately wanted a VW Thing, so clearly,...Continue Reading
