Tree Lighting

To kick off the holiday season (after black friday shopping on Thanksgiving and decorating the house Friday afternoon) we headed into Portland for the tree lighting. I can’t even count the times I thought we should go and never did. Well before young Alec was a gleam in our eyes. I finally made it! Of course this was made helpful by decent weather, meeting up with the Todd family, and the promise of Rick Charette.  :) It was our group and 10,000 other people! I never imagined there would be this many people turning up for the Portland tree lighting.

 

 

 

Terrorizing the streets of Portland.

After a walk down to Gritty’s for drinks and dinner…the camera was relinquished to the children to help keep them occupied.

And the camera was promptly confiscated when I heard Alec whispering to Mya to take pictures of the wall. 

And that’s when we noticed the naked ladies on the wall. 

Oh Alec! You silly, silly boy.

Getting ready…

And with Thanksgiving done- we pulled out a few of our favorite Christmas decorations…..

   And one of my silly favorites (read closely) …bought at a craft fair in Italy….

Black Friday

We did our ‘black friday’ shopping on-line Thursday so there were no cold,long lines for us on Friday morning. Instead we relaxed, cleaned up from Thanksgiving and took a nice walk in the woods.

Thanksgiving

A little prep work…

Baking…

A big dinner..lots of food for 7. :)

Playtime:

And a walk:

Thankful for another healthy, happy Thanksgiving surrounded by family.

A baby!

Please meet our newest niece Paulina Jean Ventura.

(sorry the picture are blurry)

Alec loves babies- I think he would have been content to hold her all evening.

Erik and I had to wrangle her away from him to get our turn!

Congrats Hillie and Tommy.

Randoms

What's new?

A whole lotta stuff and a whole lotta nothing - all mixed together.

We went to a spaghetti dinner at Alec's school a couple weeks ago. Remember the hot lunch trays? We got to use those. I haven't seen one of those in at least 20 years. They haven't changed. Ironically, we got to eat dinner with our next door neighbors. We've lived next to them for 2.5 years and haven't broken bread with them before. It was nice to spend some time chatting with them. Nana came along as well and Alec was happy to show off ‘his’ school to her.

Rec soccer ended and indoor soccer started. Alec is (from his lack of complaining) enjoying indoor soccer with his lady friends Mya and McKenna. They are learning skills and it is very well run. The bonus for me is that I get to spending the time chatting with the momma friends.

Alec was asked to join the boys gymnastic team they are starting at the gymnastics center. I thought about it but decided to decline. It was a 2 hour commitment on Fridays from 4-6. That is end of week tired boy melt down time. I decided to spare them this. (Maybe I should have spared Erik and I.) I will think about it for next year when he is adjusted to going to school and when he is a little more mature. And since we decided not to do it- I didn't enroll him in this session either. We are just going to take a little break from gymnastics. He will go back after the holidays unless he decides he doesn't miss it as much as he thinks he does.

We have been spending a lot of time taking care of Nanny- this is good and bad. By bad I mean hard. Alec should be all set by the time Erik and I get old- this will be old hat for him. :)  But seriously Alec is seeing and learning a lot of things that take some digesting for him. Between his two great-grandmothers – one is 100 and the other is 88- he has decided he should build one house and put them both in it so they care share services and nurses. (smart kid!). He spends a lot of time processing technical terms. You know he is paying attention when he announces to me in a proud voice that Nanny actually pressed her lifeline button (this was a battle to get her to have it). Of course this excited and confused him because 2 police cars and 1 ambulance came but no fire trucks. Why no fire trucks? He is patient while we are helping her- and for that I am very thankful!

Our dishwasher broke. And since we have had trouble with it since we got it – we (Erik) decided to end our relationship with it. It now sits forlornly in the garage waiting it’s forever home in the dump. Hence, I have been doing lots of dishes…but never fear the space is being put to good use.  We were holding off buying a new one until the black Friday deals came out. And as it gets closer now –it looks like the one we want will not be super discounted so we (I) will continue to wash dishes until we pull the trigger at some point. We are having thanksgiving at our house this year…lots’o’dishes. :)

I am sure there are other things I could update you on…but that’s enough of the mundane for now…..

A couple more

While eating banana bread fresh from the oven "this rocks my heart - it is so delicious!"

While snuggling on the couch while Erik was out of town "Mom- you and I are like 2 soy beans in a pod".  (love that!)

Happy Monday!

Twilight Zone

This past Friday C needed me to watch McKenna after school- McKenna actually goes to a different school so this required a little finagling. We decided to have C drop MK with me in the school parking lot and I would pick Alec up instead of having him take the bus.

Best laid plans. It seemed to be going well. C and I arrived at the same time. MK jumped out and came in with me to stand in the pick up line. But guess what? No Alec. He had a substitute teacher who, I figured out later, never passed the note to the (substitute) office lady.  Unfortunately by the time MK and I made it far enough in line – I could see Alec wasn’t in the pick up line. (ugh). I LOVE his pick up line teacher (Mrs. Marshall) –she was sprinting across the gym yelling bus 11! bus 11! Guess what bus is picked up first? Bus 11.  And it pulled away….

This means MK and I had about 30 –40 minutes to kill together. Alec has a long bus ride for being a mile away from school. MK was a trooper and was completely unfazed.  She played on the playground for a little while and then we headed to the house to wait for the bus. She played with Alec’s toys and got her fill before he could boss her around too much. :)

So what’s the twilight zone portion of this?

Not that- that’s just a story.

The twilight zone was that they didn’t fight or argue. If they disagreed, they negotiated and worked out an agreement. For 2 “only” children  -this is impressive. But even more impressive (and twilight zone –ish) they spent about an hour and a half (yes, you read that right 1.5 hours…90 minutes) doing this.

These are extremely active children. MK can give Alec a run for his money in most things active. She keeps up.  I was prepared for an afternoon of refereeing and running them ragged. I was not prepared to make banana bread, make pizza and cut up all the veggies for a salad..just being able to to watch them and listen to them. I was afraid to make a peep and break the spell.  I kept waiting for the breaking point. It never came.

Twilight zone.

They were pretending to be artists running a gallery.  One wanted to be the boss and then the other decided they wanted to be the boss. And then they just discussed it in calm rational voices and decided since neither wanted to take turns – that I would be the boss.

WHO ARE THESE CHILDREN?????

Alec’s art work (a sampling):

In order: Alec playing in water, a barrel floating in water, a sun with skyscraper, rooms in the white house (red room and green room), the titanic with it’s smoke stack in the water, and a tree in a forest with water.

 

McKenna’s artwork was definitely more stereotypical girl drawing (a sampling):

Thank you lil’ children for a nice relaxing afternoon! :)