Happy Holidays!

So I know we're slipping badly into old non-blogging patterns when I'm writing ONE blog post to wrap up a couple of months worth of holidays, but life gets the better of us sometimes. I'm hopeful we'll be able to share good news soon about what's been keeping us so busy, but for now, content yourselves with shots of our Fall/Winter festivities.

When we last left our heros, they were celebrating Arun's birthday. The next day of course was Halloween. Evie changed her mind about her costume approximately six hundred times in the run up to the main event, jumping from Angelina, to a dog, to a doctor, to a dragon. Luckily, Aunt Diane still had Evie's hero Zack's old dragon costume. And Arun sported the one dollar dog outfit from a thrift store. Both looked great.

One really cool outcome of the trick or treat experience was Arun's new habit of saying thank you. I guess all that positive reinforcement begging for candy from strangers really hammered home how far manners can take you.

Post-Halloween led us to Evie's annual Thanksgiving program/school auction. Here she is not singing with her class. I'd like to say her refusal to participate has something to do with the way the holiday tends to gloss over historical inadequacies, but really, she's just the least bit strong willed when it comes to performing.


We don't have any pictures from Thanksgiving, but it was a wonderful one, spent with our friends the Wrights and their extended family. And it was the first time in a LONG time that Jimmy and I sat at the table together after the kids had gone and didn't have to worry too much about what they were off doing, what they might be breaking, or how they might be injuring themselves. We count it an early Christmas miracle.

And the kids were thankful for a special November surprise: SNOW! We got two inches or so. Enough for this . . .


And lots of playtime outside.


Actually, lots of playtime for one of our kids. Evie June LOVES the cold, likes to shed her hat and gloves and as many layers as she can. Arun on the other hand, hasn't really had much time to get used to the idea of being cold, having been born in a sub-tropical climate and then having a fairly mild winter here last year. Our sub-30 degree temps for that week left him a bit perturbed. He'd often get in the car and scream at us, shake off his mittens, hold his hands up to us as if to ask why, why, why on earth we could allow him to get so cold. And putting the mittens back on only seemed to make him angrier. It would have been kind of funny if it weren't so loud and I weren't trying to drive.

One other thing to be thankful for this season: Advance Readers Copies of my next book, WRAPPED. Its lovely, lovely, lovely. The book is available in May, but these are out on the streets now in order to start pulling in reviews (positive ones, we hope!)



And right after Thanksgiving brought another milestone to celebrate. November 30 marked the one year anniversary of our first bringing Arun into our family. And when we think about how far God has brought us in a year, we do have so much to be thankful for.

Especially these two cool kids.


Jen