Tonight is yet another low-key New Years Eve. I got some laughs today when I told people Marc and I might ring in the new year playing Scrabble. In the end, we chose Stock Ticker. (A far cooler game, right?) Randall and Lauralea stopped by for a bit and we visited and now we’re just [...]
To commemorate 2006, I thought I would post the best and the worst Google hits that have brought people to the space known as VanderMeander. There seems to be quite the range in searches that bring people to this site. And, of course, some of them (luckily, not too many) where just a bit too [...]
Marc uploaded some pictures that Madeline took today as she wandered the house with the digital camera. If I had posted the pictures, I would’ve added the caveat: “these pictures were taken as we were getting ready for lunch and after the kids had had their way with the house for most of the morning”. [...]
More potty training… We’ve decided not to spank Madeline for pooping in her underwear because we really don’t know if it’s intentional or if she’s having some bum control issues. What we have told her is that if she doesn’t come and tell us as soon as she has an “accident” that she will get a [...]
Well, Randall went to all the hard work of creating a link for the song I sang at our church’s Advent and Christmas Eve services, so I guess I better let you all know the link. (Although, I must say that now that I’ve heard it on the downstairs computer and not just the laptop, [...]
On Sunday night, after the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service where I played drums and sang a solo, Marc said to me, “I was looking at you tonight when you were singing, and I thought to myself: how did I end up with such a beautiful woman? People at church must look at us and think [...]
Boxing Day this year was very different than years past. It used to be that Boxing Day was just an extension of Christmas — lazing around my parents’ house doing a puzzle, watching movies, reading (I think there were about 5 years in a row when I’d read the latest Left Behind book in its [...]
Merry Christmas from the VanderFamily! Here are pictures from our first Christmas Eve alone together as a family. It was nice. Noisy. But nice. Maybe Christmas with toddlers isn’t so bad after all… (or maybe it’s just that we’ll be at my parents’ tomorrow and all of the kids will be outnumbered 3 to 1 [...]
Wednesday afternoon was Madeline’s preschool’s Christmas party. It was quite the ordeal. Lots of commotion and noise. But it was good. They came in singing some Christmas carols in French and playing their instruments. Then we all made gingerbread houses (or graham cracker houses, in this case), and within seconds of the houses being finished, Madeline and [...]
Randall first posted about Walmart being open 24-7 for the week before Christmas. And I considered having Marc run down there tonight after our company goes, as Marc’s sole responsibility for Christmas (besides keeping me from crying all the time) is to buy the stocking stuffers for the men and our two nephews. But, I [...]