Apart from the fact that my sister-in-law (my oldest brother's wife) is pregnant and still doesn't know (and isn't even sure she wants to know) the gender of the baby, my family has grown in yet another way.

On Saturday, my little brother and his girlfriend N. celebrated their engagement.

We had a barbecue and in general far too much to eat, and all of that with the prospective in-laws and grandparents as guests. My brother's godparents were also there, and amazingly everybody got along great.

My sister-in-law's family never connected well with ours, but N.'s relatives seem to be as easy-going and sociable as she is. I like her. She seems to be able to take my brother in any of his moods, is generally cheerful and easy to talk to, and yes, they're much with the kissy-face, blah.

Everybody but the engaged couple dropped elephant-sized hints as to the surely-not-too-far-off wedding, and I'm confident that N. will get my brother to set a date for that one of these days, too. She's been indicating she wanted to marry and have children when they hadn't been together but six months, and evidently my brother, who consistently used to pretend to ignore that, has now changed his mind.

She's perfect for him, and I wish them all the best.