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.

Halloween

Operation Halloween Gingerbread House was a success! I bought the kit a while ago and it has been taunting Isaac ever since with its sugary goodness. But the day came and I had to get my act together and get out the kit. Behold the finished product! It's a little bit Ben and a little bit crazy Isaac.

Just two brothers hanging out with some sugar (in a messy house).

As you can tell, this type of operation takes a great deal of concentration.

A very great deal of concentration.

Decoration completed and dinner consumed, later that evening it was time for trick-or-treating. Josh opted out this year and stayed home to hand out the candy.

Halloween 2019 featured Death, a Knight (pronounced ke-ni-g-it), and a Pirate.

In the end, the kids took lots of candy from strangers and everyone was happy. Mom skimmed some candy out of each bag as she "inspected" it and Dad was gifted some of his favorite candies by a very sweet and generous Isaac. Josh ate Oreos and DF ice cream and listened to Spotify. So, yeah, everyone was happy.

Halloween Eve

We waited until almost the very last day, but we did make it to Schilter Farm this year. We left Josh at home and replaced him with Ben's friend C (just for a few hours - we did take C back to his house and Josh was waiting for us at ours). 

Ben ran straight for the hay ride first thing.

Michael was not pleased. I promise that he is in this University of Washington sweatshirt somewhere.

Next up, the corn maze. We split into two teams: me and Isaac versus Ben, C, and Michael. Isaac slipped in the mud a couple of times (it was a mucky mess of a maze), but we had the map so I thought for sure we'd win.

But nope, the three amigos were waiting for us when we came out of the maze.

Our next adventure was the big slides. What started as a short diversion while waiting for the jumping pillow (lots more pictures about that later), turned into a racing good time.

Except for this kid who found some ice to throw rocks at. Hey, whatever rocks your boat, bud.

Then the main attraction: jumping pillow! Good times to be had by all.

For an hour.

You want to know what's more fun than spending an hour watching kids jumping on an inflated pillow? Well, lot's of things, but I do like seeing them have so much fun.

And it's so cool when the pictures make it look like they are suspended in the air.

The boys found lots of ways to entertain themselves in that hour.

Mostly racing. At one point Michael looked like a jackrabbit.

Yeah, he was having fun.

This kid spent a great deal of time rolling down over and over and over and over to the point that I was worried about him getting a little green, but no puke no foul!

There was more racing fun when another kid from Ben and C's team happened to show up at the pillow.

This went on for a while until the boys were tired and I had class that night, so we stopped for a minute to see how tall everyone is now and then headed home, muddy pants and all.

It's Been A While

Fall is come! And with fall comes our crazy schedule. I realized the other day that I haven't blogged for a while. It may seem that this means that we don't have much going on when, in fact, the opposite is true. However, most of our activities are repetitive. So I thought I would record an example of what a week looks like this time of year. This means we can either look back on this time and think how foolish we were to think that this was busy OR we can wonder why were crazy enough to get ourselves into all of this.

Monday
Jason - rotary club
Irene - tai chi, chem class
Josh - robotics

Tuesday
Michael - clarinet choir
Ben - soccer, cello lesson
Isaac - swim class

Wednesday
Irene - tai chi, chem class
Josh - robotics, mutual
Michael - sax choir, mutual
Ben - soccer

Thursday
Michael - brass choir
Ben - soccer
Isaac - swim class

Friday
Irene - tai chi
Michael - piano lesson

And then the weekend comes with soccer games, birthday parties, church activities and meetings, jazz band performances, competitions, etc.

So it's especially nice that the world around us starts turning brilliant golds, reds, yellows, and oranges to demand that we notice how beautiful it is no matter how busy we get and no matter how long your son and his friend have to wait at the school because his mom forgot what time school gets out on early release day. Okay, maybe that last bit just applies to me, but still. Some days the wind blows the golden leaves off the trees and and it feels like pieces of sunshine are swirling around in the air. I love fall.