Sometimes You Make a Five Hour Round Trip to Run Through a Fountain With Your Cousins...

...and then you spend the rest of the evening telling anyone who will listen how completely awesome it was.

Family Pictures 2015

On Thanksgiving Day we delayed dinner, donned our fancy clothes, and gathered in our living room for pictures.

My favorite might be this one where no one is looking at the camera.

We also have several where almost everyone is looking at the camera and almost everyone is smiling. These are the best two from that batch.

The last time all of my siblings were together was almost four years ago at Paige's wedding. That is simply too long. We need to figure out how to see each other on a more regular basis.

The best picture of the session was made possible by the promise of fruit snacks if everyone smiled and looked at the camera. It totally worked.

Family Time!

We have a house full of family this week. Gathering from both coasts, my parents, my Grandma, my siblings, and their families are converging on my mid-western domicile for this holiday week. So far we've had days of playing with cousins in the snow, an afternoon coloring with Nana, and a delicious trip for authentic Chicago dogs.

We're looking forward to deep dish Chicago pizza, family pictures, and a gigantic Thanksgiving dinner.

Huzzah for family time!

Birthday With Brothers

I had a few people ask if we had an adventure for my birthday. As a matter of fact, we did. We spent the entire week leading up to my birthday in Atlantic City. Now, you may be asking yourself, "What could a girl who doesn't gamble or drink possibly find to do in Atlantic City?" Quite a bit, as it turns out.

I'll talk about our Atlantic City adventure tomorrow (or the next day). For my actual birthday we drove from our fancy hotel by the ocean to visit my brothers near Baltimore. It rained pretty much the whole time we were there, but that was fine with us. The stormy weather just meant more family time inside.

The cousins had lots of fun playing together. And eating together. And being slightly mischievous together.

These two had lots of girl time. They had a cousin sleepover in the guestroom and Uncle Ian even french braided their hair. It was appropriately fancy considering I overhead Phoebe say to Clara at one point, "That's what they do at Princess school!" Or something like that.

Uncle Jordan took on a baking project with the kids which resulted in delicious banana-strawberry birthday muffins. He also supervised Peter in making decadent chocolate chunk cookies. They were popular with everyone that could consume sugar.

Sophie loved Ian's cats and dog as long as they stayed a respectable distance away. She did not care for them as much when they came within arms length.

The boys played together too. Henry always starts out shy, but I think he had warmed to us by the time our two-day visit was over.

Thank you Ian for letting us stay at your house, eat your food, and monopolize your washer and dryer. And thanks Jordan for orchestrating the visit. Spending time with two of my brothers made for a great birthday gift!

More Cherry Blossom Fun

In addition to seeing our brothers, we enjoyed the Cherry Blossom Festival Parade and visited the National Museum of the American Indian. Serendipitously, we were there for Cherokee Days, so my brothers and I got to learn a little about our ancestry. We also flew kites on the lawn by the Washington Monument with the cousins, which was pretty cool.

Parades in Washington DC are old school.

And pink.

This is how to watch a parade if tall people are in front of you.

And this is what happens when you're watching the parade but your mom keeps trying to take your picture.

Cousins!

Kites!

A cousin with a kite!

And just in case you're having adventure overload, don't worry, I'm not planning any more exciting escapades for at least a few weeks. Phoebe did ask where we're going on our next adventure. I said I didn't know. She made a request: she'd like to go to Paris next.

Maybe someday, Phoebe, maybe someday.

Family Fun

My brother Ian and his kids spent the weekend at our house. We had a grand time staying indoors (with the windchill, it was 25 degrees below zero outside) and playing. I was so focused on having fun that I didn't pull out my camera until they had been here for almost a day. That means I have no pictures documenting our fun Valentine's Day party or our fancy lunch of chocolate waffles and fresh strawberries. I took lots of pictures the next day, so that makes up the difference, right?

Henry, showing me treasures from his Valentine's Day bag.

Clara, reading to Ian and Phoebe before bedtime.

We watched our digital copy of Big Hero 6. The girls were exceptionally cute during the viewing.

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We had a cousin photo shoot shortly before they went home. I'm not sure if we got any pictures with everyone looking at the camera and smiling, but we sure tried.

This is how Ian smiles for pictures. Don't worry, I make up for it with my gigantic grin.

See?

I made sure to get a picture of me and my little brother.

Thanks for visiting guys! Come back soon!

Homemade Zoo

In the days leading up to Christmas I spent lots of my time making gifts for my family. When they were done I wrapped them up and sent/handed them out.

What I failed to do was take pictures.

My sister-in-law sent me a picture last night of two of the gifts, so I can show you at least a few of the things I made with my mad skills.

The turtle was for my nephew Henry (I made one for my nephew Nathan too) and the pattern came from here. The flamingo was for my niece Clara, those instructions are here. I wanted the beak and legs to be sturdier so I sewed two pieces of felt together and stuffed them before I attached them to the body instead of using a single piece of felt as the pattern called for. You can't see it, but the flamingo has a wing on the other side that doubles as a pocket.

I think they turned out beautifully, especially for a non-sewer.

Letting My Inner Wedding Planner Out

My sister Paige and my newest brother-in-law Eugene held their wedding reception at my parents' church building. We, as the work crew, were scheduled to decorate the day before the wedding. The night before we were to decorate I asked Paige what decorative elements we were using.

It wasn't much.

One woman in the ward was lending them hurricane jars and tall battery-powered candles, but only enough for half the tables. Another woman was lending small mirrors and small round jars, again only enough for half the tables. Paige had little candles for the second set of jars.

And that was all. No runners. No ribbons. No flowers. No color.

I asked if she wanted anything else. She said yes and I asked if she cared what we got or if she just wanted us to make the decisions. Spoken like a girl that is tired of wedding-planning and just wants to get married, she said "Sure." And that's how I became the puppet-master of the reception.

The morning that we went to decorate, my newest sister-in-law and I stopped by Michael's on our way to the church. We wandered the aisles for a few minutes looking for inspiration. After settling on small glass stones to put in the jars, we paid and left. As we exited the store Falisha veered sharply to the right and went to investigate the Christmas clearance that we had passed when we first went in.

She reached into one of the bins and extracted her prize: a small sparkly blue tree branch. We went to work, digging through the boxes, searching for blue and green. Our mission resulted in about twenty blue branches and twenty-five green branches, some with leaves, some with needles, one feather. We found blue and green ribbon that matched beautifully and said prayers of thanks that Paige's tables wouldn't be barren.

Once we had our supplies in hand, it took some time to figure out how to make all the pieces come together in an aesthetically pleasing way. Neither of the pictures that I have show the complete centerpiece. The hurricane jar had a sage green square of material under it and the mirrors had some blue ribbon that came out from the edges, but this gives you a good idea.

Considering we had no idea what we were going to decorate with, I think the whole thing turned out beautifully.

We also spent time rehearsing. My mom had asked me put together a handful of musical numbers for the reception. Eugene's sweet younger sisters were excited to sing. Here I am giving my unsolicited feedback on their duet of Love Changes Everything (this is a mildly bizarre group performing the song, but it was the best I found in my thirty-second YouTube search) from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Aspects of Love. They were nice and didn't tell me to leave them alone and let them sing. And remember, I was the puppet-master, so at this point in the day I had been telling everyone what to do anyway, so I think they were used to me by then.

Grandma Bonnie, Bryan, and a revolving door of familial helpers took care of the kids in the nursery. It was a great chance for the cousins to play together. As far as I know they were happy for the most part, I don't remember any reports to the contrary.

Sweet Sweet Baby

Remember this? Well, now she's a big sister. And I have a nephew!

Meet Henry. I think he's beautiful. Or handsome, if my brother doesn't want me to call his little boy beautiful.


And this is my favorite picture of Henry and Clara together. Apparently she doesn't like to hear Henry cry. And she really wants to hold the baby.