30 December 2025

 

Grandpa & Grandma gave us a membership to the National Aquarium in Baltimore!  First visit!

29 December 2025

When I found out that the musical Wicked was going to be in Baltimore over Christmas while Rose Pink was home, I knew immediately what we were giving her for Christmas.  She was super excited when she opened her gift on Christmas morning, and she and I and our friend Megan went together to see it tonight.  Rose Pink spent a long time getting dressed up for it - green and pink clothing and some fabulous green and pink makeup too.  It was fun to go out together!

She loved it. :)  I'm so glad that we went together.

25 December 2025

 Christmas!

This year the kids got gingerbread house kits in their stockings to keep busy until Mr. Brown and I got up.  Here they are with their creations:

Santa (Rose Pink and Nut Brown) also brought the kids giant Reese's cups.

Stockings also had these little building kits with blocks shaped like pound signs.  Here is D with the snowduck he made.

We had a fun time opening presents together, and enjoying our gifts.  I received a gift in a most interesting shape, and Rosebud decorated it to "look like Mom".

It turned out to be a folding camp chair!

Mr. Brown with a blanket from his mother.

Rose Pink (with her new orange Stanley) putting together a puzzle of my parents' Dodge van.  When she opened it, she said, "I was just thinking there was a lack of van stuff this Christmas!"

Mr. Brown made us a ham dinner, with mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts and rolls, and it was much enjoyed.  It was a very nice day!

22 December 2025

 Our first Advent carol singing night was actually at my parents' house.  They invited friends on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and Rosebud and I sang together with them.  Good times, as always, although since their friends are all older people, it was the most sedate Advent that we've ever had!  When Rosebud and I got home, we had another Advent on the last Sunday in November just as a family - sitting around singing together.

For Advent #2, we co-opted the weekly Sunday night get together that our friends up the street host, and sang songs with that group.  We brought up the keyboard and I played from an armchair.  It was a little awkward.  We also invited all of Mr. Brown's Sunday School class for new and returning members, but only one of them came.

Advent #3 saw two families from church coming over to our house to sing with us.  Their kids are all younger than ours and included a 2yo and a baby.  Altogether it was only four adults and five kids that came, so not too loud, and they were all so happy to sing with us.  It was fun to get to know all of them better too!

Last Advent on 21 December - this is the one that everyone said they could come to, and we ended up with 35 people (including us) on the list.  We were concerned about whether or not we could host that many and still have fun.  Fortunately (!) one of the families fell ill and canceled on us on Sunday morning, so we ended up being 29 people instead: Bloods, Isert/Montanos, and the families of Rosebud's best friends from school.  It was so much fun to hang out with them and get to know them a little better.  And singing with old friends was also just wonderful.  It was a really, really great evening!

Both Nut Brown and I sang in the choir for the Christmas service at church.  It was a really wonderful service.  When we were rehearsing before church, I felt very strongly that God was pleased that we were worshipfully celebrating the birth of His Son that day.

21 December 2025

This year we decided to celebrate Hanukkah as well as Christmas, since I have Jewish ancestors.  Our research indicated that Hanukkah is celebrated primarily by lighting the menorah each night and eating fried foods and dairy.  We did all of these things!

The menorah is supposed to be lit by the youngest person in the house, so Rosebud did the job every evening.  D was very interested, and Mr. Brown let him light the helper candle and then Rosebud would use the helper candle to light the others.  

 We may add elements to our celebration of light next year.  For the first time, it was a good start!

17 December 2025

 D and I walked to Five Below tonight in search of a white elephant gift for me for a work party.  He was with me under protest, but I had a secret agenda.  We came across an enormous crate of Squishmallow stuffies, and he just melted!  We dug around in the crate to find all the different types, and he held them all in his arms, and then lined up his six favorites and obsessed over which one was the most desirable.  We spent at least fifteen minutes admiring and loving on them, and would have been there longer except that a helpful clerk intervened to help D decide.  (He turned on a random selector app on this phone and "spun a wheel" for him.)

I love so much that he has a weakness for cute things!

15 December 2025

 D's chorus concert tonight!  It was supposed to be last week, but it was postponed due to weather.  Unfortunately I missed the revised date because of a work trip, but Mr. Brown attended and recorded each song for me.  I'm glad for technology that let me watch it over with D when I got home, and listen to him talk excitedly about the whole performance.  I love how much he loves chorus.

14 December 2025

It snowed significantly!  School was cancelled! Church was reduced to one hour!

Kids decided to make a snowman.  They opted to do it inside by becoming snowballs themselves:

 

11 December 2025

A travel brochure for Ecuador that Rosebud carefully researched and illustrated.

for vocab tests, they have to define and illustrate words!

 

The folder that Rosebud made for her artwork in last year's art class

10 December 2025

Rosebud had a busy night tonight.  Choir concert + orchestra concert at the elementary school!  Plus she was one of the narrators to introduce one of the orchestra pieces.

D came with a long-suffering attitude, and then discovered that his friend Kieran was also there to suffer through his little sister's concert, and instead had a great time hanging out with him.

Sure proud of Little Miss.

9 December 2025

Nut Brown went the extra mile with our Christmas tree this year.
 

7 December 2025

I told D just now that it's time to get ready for bed. He got up and started to make his going-to-bed meal. "Mom, guess what time it is?" he asked me. "What time is it?" I asked. "It's eat-o-clock!"

6 December 2025

Today we checked out the town's first Christkindlmarkt downtown in the same lot as the farmers' market.  Not particularly impressed, but this bush was pretty hilarious.

Ward Christmas party tonight.  Mr. Brown and I were on the committee and were responsible for setting up a Santa seat.  Nut Brown and D helped me out - I used the stuff from the Christmas bin that I didn't get out for our house this year and it turned out fine.

The party itself went well, lots of compliments from others.  Mr. Brown and I were not particularly enthusiastic about it, and Mr. Brown and D decided not to come.  Nut Brown was busy with his friends, so he didn't come.  Rosebud was looking forward to hanging out with a particular friend, but the little girl was upset about something and wouldn't play with her.  I made sure that the Santa seat worked out, and then packed it up and left as soon as I could.  

4 December 2025

D's school pictures this year

 

30 November 2025

Kids doing awesome things at school!

Also, one of Rosebud's vocabulary tests.  Interestingly, the test requires them to define it, use it in a sentence, and illustrate it.

 

22 November 2025

My thrifty daughter Rosebud attended two birthday parties this afternoon, and proudly announced (when I picked her up) that she had saved and folded all the tissue paper from the gift wrap for us to reuse!

18 November 2025

 Rosebud made herself a grilled cheese sandwich with bacon bits the other night.  She has a very sensitive palate and usually gives us a hard time about eating anything that doesn't taste "right". She was very proud of herself for successfully making the sandwich all by herself (with some advice/guidance), and even though it was burned, she ate it!

15 November 2025

 We went to a play at Nut Brown's high school which was doing Peter and the Starcatcher and D had already watched it with Nut Brown but he came with us to watch a different time. It was fun and we spotted some people we knew acting on the stage as well as some one that did the choreography and that was fun, it was also fun to see how pirates later also showed up as mermaids and to find out how Hook from Peter Pan became Hook the villain. We had a lot of fun trying to copy some of the cool choreography after the show. (written by Rosebud)