Dear H and O,

Dad and I have been working hard on our front room over the last two weeks. We want it to be a place that is casual, and where you and your friends will enjoy spending time someday! We have people over a lot, so we like the idea of having a casual “game” room of sorts, but we also added some furniture to store our fine china so that it is accessible when we have others over and we can use the “special” dishes whenever we’d like. This room also reflects a lot of who we’d like our family to be. We have words and phrases, a family tree, photos and other examples of our family. The only thing we have left to do in this room before we’ll call it “finished” is to change out our formal dining table for a counter-height table that seats 8 — that way, if we do have a lot of people over, they can sit and enjoy each other’s company there, and if there’s not a lot going on, it’ll be a nice, big square table where we can have a puzzle going, or play games. Well, long story short (or kind of long — sorry about that!) it’s going to be a place where we can be comfortable, casual and together. Honestly, there’s not a lot more I’m looking for in life.

Love you,
Mama

Here’s our family Scrabble grid — it uses our first and middle names — I love it because it’s a physical reminder that we are all connected.

PS — This is our three hundred and ninety-ninth blog entry! Whoa!