Grace and Juliet turn 12!

This year my babies turned 12!!! 

One last night as 11 year-olds!

The twins' school day started an hour after the big kids' so they had a choice to get up an hour early or wait and do cake after school.  They both agreed to the wildly early wake up time!

Sadly, the yellow frosting faded overnight, so it was very hard to tell, but their cake was yellow, Juliet's favorite color, on the outside, and green, Grace's favorite color, on the inside. = )

The big kids got to watch them open the first few gifts, but then had to go to school.  They were delighted by all of their gifts though, especially these new blankets from the Helterbrands!

I cannot believe those tiny little baby twins are now twelve!!!  Happiest of birthdays to my favorite twelve year olds!

later days

edit 6-15-26: backdated for continuity.

Easter 2026

This year, Easter was cold.  I feel like it usually is up here, and it was also grey, so not the most pleasant day for an egg hunt.

I did not take a picture of Easter baskets, but did document the delay in the toothbrushes that I ordered for the kids! oops.

This maybe the final year of matching dresses for the girls.  Alice is a good sport, but her dress, and often Emily's just becomes 'fast fashion' and they only wear it once*, then we pass it along.  I do not want to be part of the problem.  But this year, they matched again!

After Mother's Day last year, I planted all the flowers that the girls gave me.  This year the Hyacinthia came back! It was super pretty.  I separated out the bulbs and replanted them, so we'll see if they come back again next year!  This is what they looked like on Easter Sunday.

We had a nice Easter ham for lunch, and it was a pleasant, if cold, day.

later days

 *and I don't blame them, as many of the matching dresses we've found are sized weird, too wide, really short, once you get out of the 'little kid' sizes.

edit 6-15-26: backdated for continuity.

19th Anniversary - A Few Favorite Places in Lansing

This winter was cold.  So very cold, for so very long.  The cold coupled with Alice's robotics schedule didn't leave Billy and I time or desire to celebrate our anniversary before early April.  We finally decided that we could just go to a few local places that we enjoy and make an evening of it.

We started up at Batter up Bistro, my favorite brunch place!

We were going to go to Moriarty's next, but they were not yet open, so we walked the rest of the block to Stober's.  We had the shuffleboard to ourselves for several rounds.  

Sadly, they do not have a Touchtunes jukebox, so once we were tired of shuffleboard, we walked back the other direction to Moriarty's!  We played some darts and enjoyed the live band when they came on.  We even ran into Ms. Jones!

It was a pleasant, indoor, way to celebrate 19 years!

later days

18th Anniversary- Return to Grand Rapids
17th Anniversary - English Inn: Holmes and Watson

16th Anniversary - Nico's
15th Anniversary- Etran Adventure
14th Anniversary- Ann Arbor
13th Anniversary- The trip that wasn't
12th Anniversary - Toledo
11th Anniversary - St. Louis
10th Anniversary - Fish Grille, Waxahachie
9th Anniversary - Ft. Worth
8th Anniversary - Arby's
7th Anniversary - Hookah bar
6th Anniversary - Thai Chili
5th Anniversary - Carino's - Waxahachie
4th Anniversary - Flemming's Steakhouse @ City Centre
3rd Anniversary - Dinner Movie Theater
2nd Anniversary - Le Mistral
1st Anniversary - Paris

Recap of 1st-5th

edit 6-15-26: backdated for continuity.