Philately will get you nowhere

A couple of months ago we decided to officially turn our first child into a nerd: we helped her start a stamp collection. She LOVES it.

I bought a little purple photo album from the dollar store, made a cover (shown above), and loaded the album with a bunch of blank white cards. Every time we get a letter with a new stamp on it, Olivia and I cut the stamp off and glue it onto one of the cards. December has been a great time to do it, since people send so many different Christmas stamps. We also recently had a friend move overseas, and they obligingly sent Olivia a postcard with a nice English stamp.

So, if any of you are getting an urge to make a 2-year-old girl very happy for a few cents, please feel free to send us your stamps!

* Olivia also sounds very cute saying "stamp collegshun."

My Dad-in-law

Those who read my husband's blog already know this, but my wonderful father-in-law passed away unexpectedly a few weeks ago.



I don't know what to say about this. He was a great friend to me. He was so much more than that to Steven. He was a wonderful grandpa to my girls. It doesn't feel right to say this in the past tense, so I'll say that we all love him very much, and we will miss him tremendously.

We're so grateful and he and Steven's mom were able to come visit us in October (when this picture was taken). We had no idea of it being the last time we would talk during his life. In the last few weeks, I've been recollecting conversations we had during that visit - where we were and what we talked about. He had such a nice voice. He was so loving and charitable. We are both people watchers and I enjoyed sharing our observations on life. I always felt comfortable and accepted by him, and I really appreciated that, since he gave me his baby boy.

Back when we were dating, I remember Steven describing his relationship with his dad, saying, "He's just always been such a great guy." I second that.