So Conan knows this guy at work who invited us to the Lake Lansing Sailing Club Open House month or so ago. Despite the miserable weather and the fact that Neils would have to miss cub scouts, we decided to go. We really considered joining up; we’d have access to a private beach and club house at Lake Lansing (only 25 minutes or so from our house), free use of the club boats,  and free lessons. Well, all included in the cost of joining up. So we decided to take it for a test run. Let’s see how the kids do with sailing before we commit… okay, let’s be honest, it was a great excuse to take the kids sailing for free! We had a wonderful time and have decided it’s definitely in our future… when Evangeline is about three. Sailing is definitely a multi-player sport and keeping Evangeline in the boat is also a multi-player sport, so there you go. Ah well, here are some photos from the event anyway!

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Pumpkin      had     kittens!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We didn’t  know that  Pumpkin had kittens.   But now we do.

Evangeline has always had strong opinions. Even as an infant. Today she is strawberry blonde, and that itty bitty bit of red is enough to make things explosive. My boys recently discovered the old saying “sugar and spice and everything nice, that’s what little girls are made of.” They quickly amended it for their sister: “Sugar and Spice and a little bit of dynamite…” Yow. That’s our Evie.

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Since my company puts together a team and pays for employees to run in the annual Run for the House that benefits the Ronald McDonald House in Lansing, MI, it’s becoming a yearly tradition.  Last year I did my first 5k in a few years and after running only twice the 6 months or so before the race.  Neils also ran, participating in the kid’s sprint.

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Sorry I’ve been absent from the world of blogging for about forever, and anyone who ever used to check my blog has probably stopped, but I am resuming anyway. My updates will likely be infrequent, but a once  a month update is probably sufficient to see what’s going on in our home anyway. I’m just POSTING right now. Hopefully I’ll break these up and add photos later? We’ll see.

Here are the headliners: New Parenting Approach Saves Sanity, Heiselt Homeschool Reaches New High, East Coast Swing Makes a Comeback, Spiritual Journey Brings Peace, and Falling in Love all Over Again. I would love to take lots of pictures and make a post for each of these, but that is unlikely, so let me sum up.

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I realized over this wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday that some of my own family members don’t know this about us so I thought I’d share why (and how) we don’t do Santa at our house. Well, at least I don’t. Please don’t read this if you will be offended by someone who doesn’t really like the whole Santa thing. Cuz you will probably be offended. But you will get to learn a little something more about Melissa and her crazy ways. It’s your call. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya…

First off… I was the kid who showed up at Kindergarten literally never having heard of Santa before. There we were there coloring our little coloring sheets of some fat guy and of course I was coloring him rainbow stripes or something, just like everything, until my peer told me I was coloring him wrong… “whaddya mean WRONG? It’s MY picture!” was my response, until several informed me it was some guy named “Santa Claus” and he’s red and green. SO I colored his suit green… no no, the suit is red, the mittens are green… Okay… weirdness. So I ask my Dad when I get home about this Santa Claus deal, and of course he informs me that he was Saint Nicholaus and he went around paying the dowries for poor girls to marry and he traditionally wore green and rode on a goat. I really think I could have done without the green and goat part, though it was probably for the best as I shared my new-found knowledge with all my friends and they just thought my dad was either crazy or pulling my leg.

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I started this post in early November, but couldn’t get the photos to load until now. This post is about a Saturday that was one of those rare days where everything seemed in harmony and our family was in a blissful state of balance. We had a lot of work to do, as is always the case in these winding up autumn scenes before winter… gathering leaves, mulching the gardens, weatherproofing the house… and we didn’t get everything done that was needful, but we did do everything that was possible, and we worked together as a family and it was a joyful experience!

The boys were all so helpful!

And Evie too...

I am using this term loosely as she knows she’s way faster at a crawl than she is on two feet, but she can and does often walk!

From there to here and here to there

Evangeline is walking

Everywhere.

Click to play:

And, yes, that drool did end up on my computer.

Just wanted to test and see if it’s working. This was my hair at the beginning of the year. It was supposed to be permanent, but it didn’t last a week! So sad.