My mom has a lot of godchildren. I’m probably going to get this number wrong, but I think she is godmother to something like 16 people. And five of my mom’s goddaughters are all in the same family! We’ll call them the Kay family, because all five girls (and the mom) have names starting with the letter K: Kaylea, Kelsea, Krista, Kailyn, and Kamree. Their parents, Kristi and Mike, are about my age.

The Kays not only go to the same church as my parents, they live right around the corner from them. Acting on the philosophy that you can never have too many grandparents, especially when there are five kids in your family, the Kays invite my parents to all the birthday parties and dance recitals. They occasionally call my parents and ask them to come over for an impromptu pizza-and-movie party. And my mom frequently invites the girls over for lunch during school breaks, or takes them out to a movie one or two girls at a time.

Since one of my mom’s favorite things to do is look at her many photo albums (I come by it naturally) and most kids love to look at pictures, over the years the Kay girls have looked at my mom’s photos a lot. Even though I had moved away from Omaha by the time the Kays joined my parents’ church, my mom would tell them all about me and my brother as they looked at photos, so the girls all felt as though they knew me pretty well, even though they had barely seen me in real life. And then I happened to live in Omaha for eight months (because of Troy being on deployment) not long after the Kays came around, so we all got to know each other.

After that, when I’d go home for a visit, I’d see the Kay family at church. Often my mom would plan an outing to the zoo or lunch at her house when I was there. I’ve always been a kid person in general, and the Kays are a fun family to be around, relaxed and happy in one another’s company. So I never minded tagging along as an extra adult on a Kay family field trip.

When Annalie was born, the Kay girls were quite interested in her. Kailyn had been born about a year before Annalie, so the older girls knew how exciting a new baby was. And they knew how excited my mom was for a grandbaby. Even before we took Annalie to Omaha for a visit, the Kay girls had all seen numerous photos of her and heard all about her from my mom.

So it didn’t surprise me when Krista came up to me as I was holding a three-month-old Annalie after church one Sunday we were in Omaha and asked, “So if you’re my godsister, what does that make Annalie to me?”

I had to think about it for a second, then told her, “I guess that would make Annalie your god-niece, and you would be her god-aunt. You and your sisters are all her god-aunts.”

Krista grinned, then went running off. “Hey, Kelsea! Kaylea! Did you know we’re AUNTS? We’re Annalie’s god-aunts!”

That was only the first of many such conversations I had with Krista, only after that they went more like this:

Kr: If you’re my godsister, what does that make me again?
B: Annalie’s god-aunt.
Kr: Right. And she’s my god-niece? And we’re all her god-aunts?
B: Right!

I’ve had this conversation with Krista approximately 37 times now. It’s like our little tradition.

Now that Annalie and Kailyn are 3 and 4 yeas old, they’re good buddies. Usually when we’re in town, Kailyn will sit in the pew with us at church and she and Annalie spend the hour busily drawing each other pictures and whispering with their heads close together. Then after the worship service, Annalie will skip off to Sunday school hand-in-hand with Kailyn.

When we were in Omaha for Rachel & Jeff’s wedding last month, we were fairly busy. We knew we wanted to do something with the Kays, but we didn’t know where we would fit it in. Luckily, they are laid-back and flexible, and we ended up going to lunch at a nearby Godfather’s Pizza with them after church the last day we were in town. Several other members of the church happened to be there for lunch too, and almost no one else was there. So we had the run of the place. The kids pretended to play video games and actually played pinball. Kelsea (who is such a sweetie) shared some of her birthday money with her sisters and Annalie so they could get a toy from one of the gumball machines. Kamree was passed around among her mom and her big sisters. And we actually got to sit and chat with Kristi, which happens too rarely.

It was a great way to end our visit. And with that, I have FINALLY finished all the photos from my month of traveling. Whew!