Swifter, Higher, Stronger

I love the Olympics! I love watching the athletes from around the world compete in all the different sports. I particularly love the ice skating events, for everything from the music to the choreography, to the costumes. Ice dancing costumes are particuarly interesting. Those things are crazy. And also controversial.

I love seeing the footage of Vancouver and British Columbia. The Pacific Northwest is so beautiful!


I love the Olympic Mascots. Look how cute they are! I like how they represent the culture and the local animals. Sumi is a First Nations guardian spirit, Quatchi is a sasquatch (awesome), and Miga is a sea bear (part killer whale, part Kermode bear.) The one on the bottom is their sidekick, Mukmuk, a Vancouver Island marmot.


I also love the tasty Nanaimo Bars we've been eating to be in the spirit of Olympics. They have a chocolate/coconut/nut base, a creamy vanilla filling, and a chocolate topping. Yum!

What is your favorite thing about the Olympics?

So Excited

When Miles gets excited, he has a funny way of showing it. I'm not really entirely sure how to explain this behavior...snorting? It's pretty cute.

Expressions of Love

How do you express your love for the people around you?

Miles decided to show his love by learning to say "mama" and giving kisses. It's ridiculously adorable.

Gerrit's sister Brooke decided to show her roommates that she cares by making them these delicious cupcakes with me. We had so much fun making up the cake and frosting them together. The flavors are chocolate cake with strawberry frosting and chocolate chip cookie dough (vanilla cake and frosting with a cookie dough center). Yum!




Gerrit showed his love for me with a nice surprise. I didn't know if he would remember Valentine's day, but after church while I was feeding Miles, he made a little trail of hearts spelling out "I Love You", which became a path of Reese's hearts, which led to a nice note and some chocolates. This was particularly sweet, because he not only remembered the holiday, but also that I love those holiday-shaped Reese's.


I decided to show my love for Gerrit by making him a card and waking up early Sunday morning to make him breakfast. The card was definitely a labor of love, because I'm not particularly good at craft projects and they take me longer than most people, and the breakfast was even more of a labor of love, because it involved waking up at 6:15 so we could still get to church on time.


Happy (belated) Valentine's Day and lots of love to everyone!

Bringing India to Idaho

After five months of consistently gray, cold, and snowy weather, we have been more than ready for a break. As much as a tropical vacation would be lovely, it is unfortunately out of the question, so we decided to make ourselves an Indian feast and imagine we were someplace with sunshine.

So, after one plate of butter chicken....


One plate of chickpea and tomato curry...


Two delicious naan (Made by the grocery store, because all my attempts at naan have not gone so well)



And two yummy strawberry lassis...


We felt so much better! It was fun to pretend to be somewhere else for the night and do something out of the ordinary.

My Two Blonde Boys

One of the extra benefits of living with Gerrit's grandparents is that his grandma has lots of pictures of Gerrit as a little boy and she gave us some of her extras to keep. I love looking at the pictures and comparing them to pictures of Miles. It's so fun to see what they have alike and what's different and imagine what Miles might look like when he's older. Here are some of my favorite of Gerrit's baby and toddler pictures:

I think the picture in the top left corner looks a lot like Miles.

I don't think that Miles inherited Gerrit's head shape. In that respect he looks a lot more like me as a baby.

I think that Miles will get that exact head of blonde hair soon. (I hope!)

I just love this little suit.

While Miles grow up to be a ninja like his daddy?

Only time will tell...