Getting Our Christmas On

I'm not judging anyone who does differently (okay, I am judging a little), but I can't handle having Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving. Possibly that is due to the fact that I can only deal with one major holiday at a time. (Yeah, the fact that Christmas and New Year's are only a week a part drives me crazy.)

Also, the fact that the older boys view decorating for Christmas as some sort of torture that should be against the Geneva Conventions doesn't make me any more anxious to get started. Isaac makes up for all of that with so much crazy enthusiasm that I often wonder where the happy medium may be. 

I can tell you that it ain't here. 

In any case, it was a busy weekend after Thanksgiving, but we managed to get some decorating in. We extracted the teens from their bedrooms to help put the tree together and then Ben and Isaac helped put on the decorations and Jason and his OCD supervised it all.

At some point, I should probably add some pictures of the finished project. I should probably also get the bins out of the front room. Oh, and I need to get the towels out of the dryer....

Thanksgiving

Just posting some photographic evidence that to show how grateful we are, we got together with some fabulous people and ate more than was good for any of us.  

Also, not seen here: 4 desserts.  Yes, that is 1 dessert for every 2 people. 

Also, also, my mom is no idea what angle the camera takes in for pictures. Bwa ha ha ha.

Clean Water Jazz

Today was the first jazz band concert (of very, very many) of the school year. Michael is branching out this year and trying trombone (not sure that will last) and also playing piano for a couple of the songs. He's switched over to a jazz piano teacher a little bit ago and seems to really love working on the pieces for band.

I know this is not a great picture, but this is his first piano solo. So proud! He did great.

Our dapper, talented musician.

It didn't really happen if you didn't take a selfie!

Birthday

Well, it happened. I officially left my 30s.  So, yes, I still have a difficult time saying the f-word. (No, not that one, the one that comes after thirty.)

Insert existential crisis here.

Luckily, a lot of people helped make it fun.  We started off the celebration with a painting party with some friends (and family!). Something I've always wanted to do and I only got a little yellow paint stain on my jeans.

Jason, Rachel, and Mom planned surprise trip to Portland for the next weekend. Jason took one for the team and stayed home with the boys while we partied down south.  We left early Saturday morning and spent some quality time at the outlet mall (outlet and no sales taxes = wheee!) then went to an exhibit and lecture at Medical Teams International.  I had attended a lecture by MSF a few months ago so it was really interesting to learn about another medical international aid organization.

We spent Sunday at the Portland Art Museum. Going to a museum and taking the time to enjoy it all was such a treat. We were pretty impressed with the size and kind of collections they had for a west coast city that isn't huge.

I took a ton of pictures, but have culled them down to just a few.

My first Japanese Impressionist painting.

Life imitating art.

Mom on a break. There was a lot of walking this weekend. Mom didn't realize that Rachel and I don't believe in any form of transportation other than walking. Heh heh.

I don't pretend to know, but they are so freaky.

Life imitating art, but keeping clothes on because there are laws about wandering around art museums naked. Even in Portland.

So very curious about what SVING is.

Killing time while Mom took the elevator. (I was serious about that walking thing.)

Then, as we were walking back to the car, we found this. We didn't have time to go inside, but really, what city doesn't have inflatable poop downtown?

Our last stop was Voodoo Doughnuts. Someone (looking at you, Nana) may have said something about donuts in front of Isaac before we left so we had to make a stop.

It was a wonderful weekend and we even came home bearing gifts for those left behind.

This is actually Josh's very FIRST donut. He's a fan.

Not his first and we don't recommend the grape one.

Also not his first, but he was thrilled with his Homer Simpson donut.

Probably not his first (what do you want from me? he's our fourth!), and he loved the donut-fruit loop combo.

And then real life came crashing back down on me on Monday, but it was a wonderful weekend.