Games and games and games and games and games and games and games

The song is going down into DeJong folklore.  The "inlaws" wrote a song for Hilary when she joined the family to explain what she was getting into.  One of the verses is, "Games and games and games and games and games and games and games...."

Well, I'm hear to tell you that a new generation is joining in.  Jon who use to play with cars every other hour of the day is now obsessed with games.  Just walking around the house I found

Yamslam in the kitchen...


and Monopoly in the living room.


For the first year, he begged to write a Christmas list.  My kids have never been into this before, but Jon was so excited this year.  He got out pen and paper and sat down and carefully sounded out Ticket to Ride.  Then he paused.  and thought.  and called his brother and sister over to help him come up with more to add because he was stumped.

No Ice Cream Please

Well, we've all known Michael was a routine kid, but I never thought it would stretch this far.  Saturday we had a lazy afternoon that ended with Mom not wanting to cook dinner.  So at 6:00 I announced "Ice Cream for dinner tonight!"  (Note: We have never done this before and it sounded fun, but please don't think we do this on a regular basis.)  :)  Instant approval from Jon and Becca full of cheers.  Michael just laughed and insisted I was joking because ice cream is a treat NOT a meal.  We talked about how we thought it might be fun, but Michael was not budging.  So for dinner it was:
Jon - ice cream sundae
Becca - ice cream sundae
Michael - crackers, cheese, carrots, orange



However, before you think Michael is the strangest child ever, he did have a large ice cream sundae for dessert.

A New Girl

Becca has been asking to get her hair cut short for a couple of months now.  And then she remembers that she can't have braids with short hair and reconsiders the thought.  About a week ago she approached me one morning asking if she could have braids one last time before getting her hair cut.  So we did, and then last Thursday we headed out to the salon.

The stylist showed us some pictures from a book and after passing on one that was really short and way too grown up looking for me, I saw a cute cut with bangs.  The page showed 5 pictures of the same cut, all from different angles.  I showed it to Becca and asked her if she thought this was a good one.  She thought for a minute with her hand on her chin and then smiled, pointed to one of the pictures and said, "This one."







She is so proud of her new look.  Everywhere we go she keeps talking about how no one is going to recognize her since she looks so different.  :)