We were part of an extra special surprise last Monday night. Chelsea and her boyfriend decided to just, oh, pop in on the family during a Memorial Day barbecue. Pop in all the way from Phoenix. It was awesome.

The photo above, from left to right, shows Grandma and her twin (Karen & Carol, who bring me endless delight with their twin-ness), Great-Grandma Lucille, Grandpa Bill, Roots and Auntie Bean, and Jeremy and Liv. And while I could name all those people from my own perspective, it seemed more natural to name them from Livia’s. Geez, give her a blog already!

Chelsea snapped a nice family photo for us—thanks, Bean!

And the dog walked into the sunset after a lovely evening of playing with the fam. Really, he’s walking the other direction, but that just doesn’t sound very interesting. After running around the acreage for five hours, Shiloh slept hard that night. Actually, we all did. Eat, play outside, play inside. It was a good night with a great family.

…and an iris.

Livia, after face-painting this morning, requested a blog post where people try to figure out who she is.

Do six year olds ever get their own blogs? If so, who would read them?

Is this what happens when a web developer and a blogger have offspring?

Prairie Box points, let’s say 220 of them, to the first person who correctly identifies what is going on in this picture.

Meet my beautiful and talented sister-in-law Chelsea. Check out the earrings—she made them!

And I’ve got to say, after a few minutes of simply sitting next to her in her car, I wanted to get a tattoo.

Chelsea has one of the most enthusiastic and fun spirits of anyone I know and hanging out with her is always fun. It’s hard to leave a sister behind, but I suppose that just means we look forward to our visits with her even more.

Howdy, friends! We just returned home from a family vacation to Phoenix, Arizona. We had a wonderful time hanging out family while soaking up some Arizona sunshine. My favorite thing about heading that direction is that the geography is so very different from here. I love landing at the Phoenix airport amidst the vast brown landscape, broken only by enormous outcroppings of rocky hills and mountains. It’s like landing on the moon after being in the green spring of Nebraska.

Our first morning on vacation found us exploring the Boyce Thompson Arboretum with Jeremy’s cousin Jeff and his family. We started early enough in the day—on a cooler day no less—and it was still hot. But the unique beauty of the area was really something to behold and my camera found plenty to capture.

Purple cactus. How cool is that?

Happy birthday, Sweet Girl! Your mom and dad love you a million times over.

We had a good, good day, didn’t we?

It’s the night before Livia’s sixth birthday and I just botched an entire batch of M&M cookies for her school treat tomorrow. But before I get too frustrated by the botched batch—say that five times fast!—I have to remember that things could be worse. It could’ve been a botched cake, and that would’ve been bad news.

As it is, a heart-shaped cake awaits icing on the counter. Bags of decorations and unwrapped gifts rest on the living room couch. Our little white Coton snoozes in his kennel after a satisfying dinner of dog food. And my handsome web developer web-develops upstairs; surely he won’t mind eating the rest of the cookie dough for me.

Tucked in her bed, with a stuffed pink octopus nestled in her arms, lies my little girl on her last night of being five years old. Awake she is vibrant, chatty, imaginative and strong. Asleep she is only a breath away from that baby who slept peacefully with her arms behind her head, legs splayed like a little frog.

Praise God for this child who calls me Mama. Each day of Livia Raine is a blessing to me.

Pansies, without fail, make me think of my grandma Iola. She loved the little faces on each flower.

When I worry about my potted plants, I am reminded of Grandma, too. When it would storm, Grandma would pull every last potted plant off her patio and into her living room. She wasn’t taking any chances with foul weather. As you can imagine, during a Nebraska spring those plants were often taking respite in her apartment. She had a lot of pots. It was quite a chore and you weren’t necessarily pleased when you drove up to see an empty walkout porch. That meant you had to help haul all the precious plants back out! Ha.

God bless my artsy, intensely creative grandmother! You bet she’s oohing and aahing over the colors in glory right now. She loved Jesus.