Janet's Blog

Look! The virgin will conceive a child!  She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means "God is with us." Isaiah 7:14 And just like that, Mary's and Joseph's lives were changed forever--as were the lives of millions throughout the ages who have believed in Jesus, our Savior. May this Christmas season bring you great joy and peace! Nothing can match the changes that Jesus brought into our world, but as I was thinking about writing this Christmas letter, I realized that my family's lives have been marked with much change this year, too. Back row, from left to right: Andy, Tobin, Lucy, Meagan, Bill, Levi Front row: Ari, Ruthie, Lydia, Evie, Janet, Victoria, Erin, Anna, Will, and Reed To begin with, Erin and Reed, with their two kids, moved from Ohio to Parker, Colorado, (a Denver suburb) in May, when Erin took a new job as an academic dean at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton. Reed continues to work from home. Will loves kindergarten...

Our floral couch sat in the living room for more than 25 years. We hadn't had it for too long when we celebrated November birthdays in 2000. That birthday party was special because it was Victoria's first birthday with us, her new forever family. She had lived in our house permanently for exactly one week. The couch was a perfect spot for a picture to commemorate the day. Bill's mother, Beth, was celebrating her 74th birthday that day, while Victoria was turning five years old, and Bill had just turned 46.  I remember going shopping for a new couch for the family room, sometime in the late 1990s. I didn't expect to be able to buy a new living room couch, too, but the furniture store was having a fantastic sale. So we bought a new couch for the family room, as we had intended, and a beautiful, floral couch for the living room—two for the price of one. That family room couch served us well, and was replaced at least a decade ago. The living room couch wasn't used near...

I hadn't thought of my dutt in years but, suddenly, not too long ago, I remembered how my mom would ask me if I wanted her to put a dutt in my hair. I usually agreed, since it was a cool hairdo for a hot Nebraska day. In German, a hair bun is called a dutt , which rhymes with the English word, put . The word, used in Germany and Switzerland, simply refers to a particular hairstyle, commonly called a bun in the US. Mom would twist my ponytail into a little dutt, right on top of my head, and secure it with two or three bobby pins. She usually left some of my hair hanging down, especially when it was too short to pull it all up into a bun. She told me how her mom had given her a dutt when she was a little girl, and how her grandma, who spoke only German, had often given my grandma the same hairstyle. So the hairdo, as well as its name, had been passed down through several generations. I don't remember that anyone else I knew ever wore a dutt. I never heard the word used anywhere e...