And all flesh shall see it together

Christmas Day sent us over to a very lively family party in Lynchburg. When you have a baby close to the holidays, you are granted non-travelling privileges!

For the first time, Jon got to hold his niece:

She's still so tiny! But she's valiantly holding up her head, making expressive faces and making a variety of noises. I have a huge enthusiasm for newborns. 

Adele formed a close relationship with Toby the Black Lab, one of the Nishimuras' 3 dogs. Tolerance is among his stronger personal qualities: 

Adele hugely enjoyed the chance to play with her baby cousin. She continues to surprise me with her affection for Addison (and Miles continues to surprise me with his lack of interest!).

We so rarely get good pictures of the kids with their grandparents, that we made a point of it this time.



Probably the best of a long series of group family pictures! Here you may see Jon's parents and siblings and their families: Tim & Corey, Cindy, Miles, Marshall, Michaela, Addison, Dave, Jon, Adele and Me. It was a full house! perfect degree of noise and merriment for Christmas.

I am under oath not to share pictures, so you'll have to imagine them: we all had a long Wii Dance Party! We gave ourselves a couple of dance games for Christmas, and I'm getting more skillful at The Power, Tik Tok, and Body Movin every day. But that first day, it was pretty much farcical comedy, with some impressive scores by Tim and Marshall. We got a lot of laughs out of it. 

Sunday we attended church at St. Phillips in Annapolis, and afterward drove into DC for Zoo Lights! When it's 72 degrees on a December Sunday and you're in range of the National Zoo, you don't think twice!

You won't see a lot of pictures. I started the day feeling pretty lousy (more on that later), and Miles ended the day by spiking a fever and kind of slowly collapsing. Still, we enjoyed our stroll and encounters with gorillas, elephants, and zebras on that preternaturally warm winter day. 

Cheetah has Opinions. 

Vulture? Maybe? I was pretty tired. 

Look! A sloth!

The light shows did not disappoint!

Miles' fever worsened over the next days, I'm sorry to say. It took till this past weekend for him to be himself; Wednesday it had gotten so bad I decided it was time for Urgent Care. I don't like to take them in for mere viruses, but this time I made the right call: Miles had strep throat! Having never once complained about a sore throat! We got him on antibiotics with haste, but it still took a lot of days for him to feel much better since he seemed to have a secondary virus as well. Poor kid! He hasn't worried me so much in a while. I'm so grateful for antibiotics right now.

Adele had a great old time during her week in Maryland, as relatively uneventful as it was. She and I enjoyed a girls' afternoon at the Annapolis Mall, for one thing.

She also got a lot out of enjoyment from her Christmas gifts. She particularly loves her Goldie Blox, engineering toys marketed specifically at young girls. Her kit came with an accompanying picture book (which contained instructions for several projects). She's able to follow the multi-step instructions to build her parade float all on her own. I recommend getting a set for the little girl in your life! We often don't realize how much we often limit kids by gender until we set out to challenge these limitations.

After several days of rest and Wii dance and coziness (I haven't been that caught up on sleep in a long while! It felt marvelous), we departed Annapolis on Thursday.

Our New Year was spent at home with our still-contagious sickie. But Jon and I stayed up. We rented This is 40 and laughed ridiculously hard, because it's so funny but it's also so real. Romantic comedies that stop at marriage, or even at the birth of a firstborn kid, are becoming less interesting to me. I need the strength that comes laughter at the unglamorous, emotionally draining work of showing up to marriage, children, and adult life. I heartily recommend This is 40. And go ahead and recommend similar movies to me! I need them!

The January page of our new 2016 kitchen wall calendar

2016. It looks so pretty when written. It rings when said aloud. I have great hopes for it, and I'm not waiting a day to experience positive change. 

More details, and my 2016 One Word, to follow.