(more to come in the coming days from our weekend in West Virginia…)

Posted in Elwyn No Comments »

We had several episodes of rampant, gleeful chaos in the basement and family room. Suspiciously, these tended to start when Greg was the sole adult around, but you’ll just have to draw your own conclusions. That’s Benton’s hand in the lower right corner. Alana was thrilled to have another princess to play with. We could […]

Posted in Alana, Benton, Carson No Comments »

Well, Andrew Phelps bonded with everyone. There are no pictures of Julie bonding with Andrew because, dammit, we’re STOPPING AT THREE KIDS! Carson was a big fan of Andrew and played with him off and on throughout the visit. Andrew was a big fan of Elwyn. And, Elwyn isn’t mobile enough to get away, so […]

Posted in Carson, Elwyn No Comments »

On the same day that Paul and Patti departed, the Phelps Clan arrived from Chicago. Greg and Josie are Julie’s and my “First Couple”, and their move from Brooklyn to Chicago, combined with our move from Austin to Columbus, set us up for getting back to seeing them with some more frequency. The question was […]

Posted in Carson No Comments »

Julie’s brother and his wife, Patti, came down for a few days after Christmas. As always, they were a hit with the kids. They brought their dog, Petey (or “Petey the Flatulent” as he will be known henceforth and forthwith — an unfortunate side effect of some antibiotics he was on). Petey is part cat, […]

Posted in Alana, Benton, Carson No Comments »

Benton and Carson both got full camouflage fleece ensembles — pants, sweatshirts, and gloves. I think they’ve taken them off once or twice since Christmas day. Julie decreed that we go on a Christmas afternoon death march. The picture below was the most positive that the three kids were about the outing…and this was before […]

Posted in Alana, Benton, Carson No Comments »

Our family room on Christmas morning was a festive medley of red and green…and pink! Not shown in the pictures below is the pink princess Big Wheel. And the Cinderella fleece blanket is not really done justice. And the fact that the book in the second picture is actually personalized for Alana (she and her […]

Posted in Alana No Comments »

A couple of weeks before Christmas, Julie’s aunt, uncle, cousin, and cousin’s two sons drove down from Cleveland/Wadsworth to make buckeyes (peanut butter and chocolate) and Christmas cookies. Alana really got into “painting” the cookies: At school, Benton had a multi-week “heritage” project. He chose Poland and did quite a bit of research, which resulted […]

Posted in Alana, Benton, Carson No Comments »

Doing a bit of catching up here. It hasn’t actually snowed for a few weeks, with the exception of a light dusting we got last night. But, I finally got around to getting pictures downloaded from the camera after the past couple of weeks of semi-chaos. Snow in our driveway — even Alana got into […]

Posted in Alana, Benton, Carson, Julie No Comments »