Apple picking with our house group. Our house group consists of exactly two other couples. Our church, a big, charismatic Anglican church--lovely in so many ways--does not do house groups. I don't know why. So many new and old couples we talk to bemoan the lack of community and ease in meeting others. But for some odd reason, we don't have a way to form real community. Our Bishop just started pastorates, which I think is modeled on HTB in London. I think one of the issues is that the leadership of our church is TIGHT and perhaps they think by default the rest of the church experiences the same ease in connection? I don't know. When people ask about it, they are encouraged to join pastorates, which are between 30-70 people. But I digress. So, last year, we started our own house group with one other couple. Then we managed to add one more. This is Carlee. We went apple picking together. Most of the good apples had been picked over. So we soothed ourselves with fresh apple cider and homemade donuts.
Here we are (represented by Harry, I guess) at Sonny Acres farm in West Chicago. It's one of those places that has lots of rides and games that cost tons of money, then they sell you overpriced, misshapen pumpkins. The kids had fun. I always get nervous putting them on those rides that look like they've been set up in a half hour by 16 year olds. But everyone survived.
Look at Brice with his short sleeves. We had such a lovely, warm fall. I thought for sure this was a sign we'd have a nice, normal winter (not so). But we enjoyed it while it lasted. Don't they both look like they're working so diligently? Do all younger kids try to skate by on the hard work of his or her older sibling? Perhaps. Maybe we should push him harder, but frankly, we enjoy the easygoing, chillaxing way Harry approaches the world. This picture is 5 seconds before he abandoned his pumpkin and moved on to the real work of the day:
Harry meandered his way to the front to fake-ask Seth if he needed any help raking (as if). Then took a nice long nap in the sun, laying on the leaves Seth spent a couple hours raking. It's good to be king.
Halloween. The pizza guy is our sweet neighbor Dallas. I managed to convince Brice to be a ninja instead of a (wait for it....) skeleton. He said he really liked it, but next year wants to be a skeleton again (what is it about skeletons??). Sigh... Harry went as Darth Vader. Neither of our kids have seen Star Wars yet, but they know Darth Vader. It was in the 40s when they went trick or treating. Harry, of course, lost his light saber along the way. Then they came home, ate dinner, had some candy, got into a fight in the bathroom and went to bed crying. Oh, Halloween!!
Visiting my parents in Grand Rapids. I'm always so pleased when I get a shot of my dad and/or Brice smiling at the camera. Both of them are usually staring you down or being goofy. This time I told them to make silly faces and dad just smiled and Brice stuck his tongue out. Fine, i'll take it. Harry is looking off into the distance, but that's totally normal. Do kids ever reach an age when they look at the camera and do a nice, normal smile?
Here we are getting our Christmas tree at the Cosley Zoo. Growing up, my brother was allergic to the real thing, so we always had fake christmas trees. Now it's always a big treat to go get a real one. I love the smell and how the branches sag with each ornament. We never manage to secure it to the top of the van with any precision, so we usually drive exceptionally slowly and stop several times to shove it back into place.
This was at Brice's Christmas musical. At the end he was walking by and Harry rushed up to hug him. Last year, he didn't wait that long and ran up to him while he was singing with his class and gave him a big bear hug. Has there ever been an older brother who wasn't unreservedly worshipped by his younger sibling?
Dad and Brice. Smiling.
Celebrating NYE with our house group. Seth and I have always gotten Chinese take-out and a nice bottle of champagne on this night. So everyone came over with their kids (7 in all) and we had takeout and champagne and whatnot and just ate and laughed and talked until midnight. We told the kids they could stay up to watch the ball drop, never thinking for one second they actually could make it that long, but alas, they did. So at midnight we had 7 little indians lined up in front of our small tv, with plastic flutes of sparkling grape juice and we welcomed the new year all together.
Harry reads a book, his very first, to my mom. Harry is very artistic and creative. He loves music, dancing, building, coloring, etc. Anything that involves beauty and creating. But being the younger brother of a kid for whom all things academic come ridiculously easy has not been easy for Harry. When something is hard for him, instead of sticking with it and pushing through, he tends to run from it and refuses to engage. This makes learning a bit tricky. His teachers at Montessori are great about letting him do things that he loves and things that build his confidence, before introducing more difficult concepts. This year after he's done his map-making and printing and math work, he's been taking these BOB books to a quiet corner and working them out on his own. And lo and behold, he's reading. Well done, Harry.
This winter we took the boys downtown for little mid-winter getaway. We always choose a hotel with a pool then hit one of the museums for the day. This year we went to the Art Institute. After a few close calls with some paintings (can you say, "two inches from touching one of the most famous paintings in the world"?? Heart Attack!) we went to the children's wing. Much better.
Seth turned 40 on Valentines Day. We'd been talking about how he wanted to celebrate and we finally decided on a party at our house with Indian food. We ended up with that, Mexican, a Crave Case, dumplings, a margarita station and a keg right next to the kid's stuff (I had to do a smell test before I sent them to school on Monday). We had a full house and full hearts. God has been good to us and so generous when it comes to friends.
Harry's got his eye on you, world!
1 comment:
Miss you all! XO
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