Meeting More Family!

March 21, 2015 nk3302 Comments

Good grief, I’ve been working on this post for nearly a month! Gerrit has kept me very occupied during that time, but I really wanted to get it published finally.

While we were in Wisconsin, we mostly saw Andrew’s family. His parents flew in from Reno, and the majority of his extended family live in the state, so it was fairly easy to see everyone. My family, on the other hand, is a little more spread out! Almost all of my extended family is in Michigan, although in the winter, I also have grandparents that head down to Florida to wait out the cold. I have one sister still in Wisconsin, but the other two and my parents live down in Tennessee now. Like I said: spread out!

We spent the most time with my sister Amanda and her family. You wouldn’t have guessed it though, because I took pretty much NO photos at their house. I blame stress and lack of sleep for this. 🙂 I finally got a photo of Amanda, Gerrit, and myself at the baby shower she threw for us:

My mom’s parents drove over for our last weekend in Wisconsin. I’m thankful they were able to come over to see their newest great-grandchild before we headed south! The weather in February in the Midwest can be pretty hard to plan around. Here they are with Gerrit:

I just laugh at Gerrit’s reaction to the camera: completely solemn! One of these days he’ll realize you SMILE for the camera, not just study it intently.

My dad’s sisters had planned on driving over to meet Gerrit (and see us) that last weekend as well, but Mother Nature had other plans and dumped snow on them. They were pretty disappointed; I was too! So Gerrit will have to wait until our next trip up north to meet his crazy great aunts. 🙂

After nearly a month in Wisconsin, it was time to head down to North Carolina so Andrew could report at our next duty station. Since the rest of my family is in Tennessee, we made Chattanooga a stop on our trip. Only my mom had met Gerrit, so I was excited for my dad and youngest two sisters to meet our little guy!

Kelsi with Gerrit (sitting on his cousin!)

Kelsi’s little boy, Braxton, was pretty excited about meeting Gerrit! He wanted to hold him, play with him… pretty much anything that we would let him do ~~with~~ to Gerrit.

Aren’t they cute together?! Since meeting Gerrit, Braxton has become a big brother, and from what I hear he is loving it! I can’t wait until Gerrit and his new cousin, Nolan, are big enough to play together.

My sister Becki has said she won’t hold babies until they have some head control… so I’m glad Gerrit was almost 4 months old when she got to meet him. I wish we had had more time in Chattanooga for her to take some photos of him, because she has recently graduated with a degree in photography. Hopefully next time!

Last but not least, Gerrit had to meet my dad… his Papa! Gerrit’s middle name (Allen) is after my dad’s middle name. Since my dad didn’t get to pass on his last name to any boys, I wanted our first son to have part of his name.

I realize Gerrit doesn’t look thrilled to meet any of his family, haha, but he was much more interested in person! Like I’ve said, he is a pretty serious little guy. He really likes to observe people for awhile before he starts smiling and interacting with them. Slow to warm up to people, just like his momma. I’m hoping that the next time he sees everyone, he will get to play with them more and start to get to know them. I know he will love his crazy family!

Daily living

Sister Love

August 15, 2012 nk3306 Comments

First of all, I was just thinking how crazy it is that our one year anniversary of moving to England is quickly approaching. I can’t believe how quick that went. That whole first day of our arrival is an exhausted blur. Since moving here, I haven’t felt homesick very much. Yes, it was hard around the holidays, but we managed. And it’s rare that I actually feel sick for “home”… it’s usually just family that I miss.

In the years that I lived in Milwaukee for college and then life after, it was a big comfort to know that I could pretty much go home whenever I wanted. It was roughly a 90 minute drive to my parents’ house, so I really never missed holidays or birthdays.

December 24, 2005 — Eating breakfast – Christmas 2005

My second sister stayed in the area after high school, so I always got to see her when I was home too. But then in 2009ish, my dad took a new job in Tennessee. I was not happy! My mom stayed in Wisconsin for my youngest sister to finish her last year of high school, but then she moved down to Tennessee to join my dad. Sister #3 went to Tennessee as well, and my youngest sister went to school in the Chicago area. And then Andrew joined the Air Force, we got married, and plans to move to another country started coming together. Basically, in about 2 years, my whole family got torn apart geographically. How sad!

As it turns out, I will be going “home” (somewhere in the States!) at least once a year while we’re living in England. The sole reason is weddings, haha. But that’s a lot less face time than I’m used to… and I don’t like it! Thank goodness for Facebook and phone calls, but once in awhile I get really sad about being away from family. Like this weekend. My sister, Amanda, and my mom met halfway (somewhere in Indiana) for a girls weekend of shopping. I was so excited for them, but I was so jealous for me! And when my mom posted something about when we all lived under the same roof, I just got sad. Sometimes I just REALLY miss my sisters and my parents. I think we are just an awesome family!

I know I did a whole post about Kelsi on her birthday (I had a lot more time on my hands then, haha!), and I’ve been feeling bad that I never wrote anything for Manda & Becki. So, since I’m missing my family a lot right now, I’m posting some sister (and family) love. 🙂

Best friend since as long as I can remember? My Manda Panda. 🙂 She was born just after my 2nd birthday, so I really don’t remember life before that. She’s always been my playmate and best buddy.

Oh, we fought like cats and dogs once in awhile, but I think we got along pretty well for the most part. We were pretty much opposites growing up, and our grandma always said Manda wasn’t naughty, she was “spirited.” 🙂 And a story I heard a lot growing up was how I was a very particular kid. I liked things just so, and I would spend a lot of time organizing the play kitchen I had. And then Amanda would crawl over to it, pull herself up, and shake that little kitchen! All my little teacups I had lined up just right… ahh, it was awful, haha.
I can honestly say that, despite how close we were in age, Manda and I never went through that phase of hating each other as teenagers. I mean, like I said, we were pretty much opposites in terms of what we liked, the activities we got involved in, and hobbies, but she was always my closest confidante.

scan00205 — Summer 2001 at my grandparents’ house — I would have been 16, Manda: 14, Kelsi: 10; Becki: 9

It was probably more fun to hang out once I was in college (woohoo, no parental supervision!), but we were pretty well-behaved. 🙂 And we’ve stayed close ever since! She was even my maid-of-honor at our recent wedding blessing:

Kelsi is my next sister, and I wrote about her right here. 🙂 Since there’s nearly a four year gap between Manda & Kelsi, and then only 18 months between Kelsi & Becki, my youngest two sisters were really close growing up too. Becki was my parents’ last shot at having a boy… but they got stuck with us four crazy girls!

I kind of remember Becki being born… I remember waking up one summer morning to find the neighbor lady instead of my parents! I don’t remember going to see her in the hospital or anything though. She was kind of a naughty kid, haha! Letting her watch “Dennis the Menace” was probably a bad idea…

I remember it driving me nuts that Becki would put together the strangest combinations of clothes. Remember up there when I talked about being a nut about organizing my play kitchen? Well, I really liked clothes to match too! Here’s Becki being Becki:

Spring97 — Becki (4) & Kelsi (6) with two girls my mom baby-sat for

Really? Polka dots and floral? Like I said… drove me nuts, haha. She definitely keeps you on your toes. From a young age she was really independent and a leader… never one to follow the crowd. I went to college when she was 11, so I had a few weekends when I would have one of my sisters visit. One-on-one time is pretty awesome when you have three sisters!

April 30 00028 — Spring 2005… Becki was 12 and I was 20

Once Becki turned 18, I think it finally sunk in that she was not a kid anymore. She was already off to art school and exploring Chicago by then! I love seeing the photographs she takes as well as the ones she models for (many talents, this one!).

557427_350280581715905_852950651_n — How many cameras do you think she owns? 🙂

I’m sure you can see why I miss my family… they are amazing people! We’ve been through a lot, and we’re adding every year (babies, marriages), and I could not ever ask for a better family. We are silly, sarcastic, supportive, and honest. I know Andrew has always thought I was a little quirky, but he had no idea how goofy I can be until he met my family! As he said, “Wow, I thought you could be ridiculous… but your family really brings it out in you!” Yes, I take that as a compliment. 🙂

Daily living

Why I Love Christmas

January 26, 2012January 26, 2012 nk3304 Comments

I adore Christmas. It is, by far, my favorite holiday, and it is definitely the most wonderful time of the year! I remember going through a phase when I was younger (probably 12 or 13) when I felt really depressed by Christmas. It had really lost that “magic” it had had when I was younger. I’m sure I didn’t fully enjoy Christmas for a few years there, and I’m pretty sure I thought Christmas would always be a let-down.

Not true! Why? Because my mother is amazing. You know when people say, “I have the best mom in the world.”? No, sorry, you don’t. I know you all think I’m exaggerating, but I have the best mom in the world. You would understand if you met her. 🙂 And I will argue with you on this point to my grave. And no, of course I’m not biased: I have 3 sisters to back me up.

girls — May 2010 - One of my very favorite photos!

Anyways, I’m getting off track here. How dd my mom save Christmas for me? By changing our names. I don’t even remember when she started this. Probably when I was in middle or high school. It was her way of guaranteeing that we didn’t know what we were getting. We could shake the boxes, eye up the size and shape of those presents, but it didn’t matter much if your name wasn’t on it. So whose names were on these gifts? It changed every year. One year she used Disney princesses. One year we were animals. Another year we were gemstones. We were 4 of the Seven Dwarfs one year. She has used so many different themes, I probably don’t remember them all!

She began putting a clue in our stockings so we would know who we were Christmas morning. Don’t worry, we know the rest of the gifts were from Santa; just that clue was from Mom. 🙂 This small extra thing that my mom did made Christmas a little more exciting for me. I was up at 5:30 to go open that stocking. No, this didn’t stop at age 16 or 21 or 25. In fact, this was the first year in a long time that I wasn’t up before the sun on Christmas Day! I think that as I got older, I continued to get up super early just to keep up the excitement. You can ask my sisters and Andrew, but how can you not be excited when Nicole comes running into your room to whisper, “It’s Christmas!! Let’s open stockings!!” 🙂 The hardest thing I see in my future, pertaining to this, is continuing the tradition for my own kids and waiting for them to come excitedly wake me up. I know I will have to fake being asleep, because to this day, I cannot sleep on Christmas Eve. I knew it wouldn’t be the same this year, but I was still so excited. I made sure Andrew and I bought each other secret stocking gifts, so it was almost as exciting as usual.

Oh, I love Christmas music. I put it on immediately after Thanksgiving, and I will be singing carols all the time. How can you not hum “O Come All Ye Faithful” when you’re making dinner after hearing it 3 times earlier that day?! And I love decorating the house. I love putting up the Christmas tree. I love watching “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” But my favorite part of the holiday is definitely the tradition my mom started. She saved Christmas for me when I was a teenager, and she inspired me to keep the holiday exciting no matter how old I get.