Keeping warm on a cold rainy day

One day last year, my friend Leona posted some photos of a quilt she was making. As much as I love all of the quilts that she has made, this one somehow caught my eye. I liked the deep colors and the unique, yet simple, design.

On my birthday in September, Leona joined me and a few friends for lunch. She then told me that the quilt I had admired would be my birthday present. I was overwhelmed with the thought that she was making something so special for me, but also felt very excited.

Leona gave me the quilt a few weeks later, just as the weather was turning cold. It now has a place of honor on the futon in the living room, and we often bundle up in it when it is cold.


Sometimes Charlotte and Alexander like to cuddle up with the quilt while watching TV. But sometimes Charlotte is more interested in a cuddle than Alexander is!

Thank you, Leona!

The gang at Christmas

We managed a few hours with all five siblings and all four grandchildren together under one roof. Unfortunately those hours were about midnight to 7am. We didn't let the children stay up late, so you can imagine that this photo was taken very early in the morning!


It was wonderful to see everyone. Peti, next time I'll make sure that I actually know your schedule before I book our return flight!

I love my cousins!

This summer we met our cousin Hannah and fell in love with her right away. I just could not wait to see her again. I am so happy that I saw her in Cleveland before Christmas. She always smiled when she saw me, and grabbed my hand. I think she likes me too.


We always have fun with Máté when we see him. This time we went for walks, built a snowman, played pinball, went swimming, played with Playmobil and other games. I enjoyed reading him stories. Here I am reading him "Robert the Rose Horse", a family favorite.


Of course Sándor loves his cousins too. He just doesn't sit still long enough to be in our photos!

We love snow!

While we were in Cleveland in December, we were very excited to see the snow. We were also fortunate that it did not snow too much or get too cold. We bundled up and walked around the neighborhood several times.


We also had great fun building a snowman. We had to use just about all the snow in Najm and Najp's backyard, but we managed to gather enough to make a small snowman.













Najm gave us her scarf and Najp's hat to dress the snowman, a carrot for its nose, and chocolate for its eyes and mouth. We decided to eat some of the chocolate and use a twig for the mouth instead! By the next morning the eyes and nose had disappeared. If we hadn't eaten most of the chocolate ourselves, there may have been some deer with bad tummy aches out there.


Then we enjoyed warming up with hot chocolate and marshmallows. Yum!

Merry Christmas

Charlotte, Alexander, and I visited Cleveland right before Christmas. We returned on the 23rd, and jumped right into our last-minute Christmas preparations. We were a bit tired from our pre-Christmas adventure (about which we will post soon), but kicked off our celebration by attending a Children's Mass on Christmas Eve. It was a lovely evening, so we walked and avoided the parking nightmare. Upon our return home, we found that the angels had left a few gifts and had placed Baby Jesus in the manger!


This morning we awoke to find stockings filled by Father Christmas and gifts from each other and our extended family. We enjoyed a pancake breakfast together and then opened our gifts. Thank you to everyone who remembered us this Christmas.

Charlotte was very excited to receive a new purse from Auntie Tracey, especially as she had broken the strap on her other purse just yesterday. Alexander was grateful to Charlotte for his "Alexander" mug.

All of us were excited to receive tickets to see The Nutcracker Ballet!

After dinner we watched the Queen's Speech together, as we do every year. Merry Christmas!

Who says we have no seasons?

Mummy took me to the park for a playdate today. On our way home we passed a tree that had beautiful red leaves. I told Mummy to take a photo so that we could show Daddy and Charlotte. It turns out that we didn't have to go far to see autumn leaves after all.

Roarrrr!

We enjoyed trick-or-treating for Halloween last night. I was dressed as a cheetah and Alexander was a tiger. It was a gorgeous night. We thought it was a full moon, but will actually be full tomorrow. Even so, the moon was very bright and beautiful.


We each came home with a bag full of candy and happy memories of a fun evening spent with good friends. Happy Halloween!