Everything since Nov. 8th

I have a lot of pictures - most from a few specific days - from the past month. These are some (lots) of my favorites: Pictures on Google Albums

So it's been a long time. Just over three weeks. I've meant to blog. I've thought about blogging. But honestly, i just didn't have the heart to do it after the election. But life goes on, and things keep happening, and now it's December and Christmas is coming, and so.

(A quick aside. I am really quite heartbroken about the election. Not because i loved Hillary so much, but because i'm just so incredibly disappointed in people. I realize that people don't like Hillary, and that's fine. And in any other election in my lifetime, i'd say, "I'm bummed that my guy didn't win, but i'm sure the other guy will be able to do the job too." But Trump? He's just so offensive and unqualified. And so many of his followers are far too happy about being given leave to be openly racist and offensive now. And so far, since the election, nothing has lessened my fears. So. There. There's that for posterity.)

Anyhow. Things that we've been doing in November:

• Family Drawing night. It's always a favorite activity and really something we don't do often enough. Everyone has a special sketch book used specifically for family drawing night - the kids are all nearly finished with their second books (theirs are quite thin books...) - so there are drawings going back several years at the beginning of their books. They all started looking at what they'd drawn 4-5 years ago, and it really is fun to see how much better they are at drawing!
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The movie came out on the 18th, and so we got a big group together and had everyone over for a pre-movie party and then all went to see the movie together. Beth and Juanito and Keren and i made party favors - bookmarks and cookies and origami rats and suitcases (for where the beasts lived) and passports and little tiny beasts. Everyone brought food, and we had cupcakes to sort people into their American Magic school houses. Brooke even got to come, having just returned from New Zealand. Yay!
• We went to Meijer Gardens for the Tree Lighting. It was a members only event (fun!), and it was quite packed. The tree lighting itself was quite lame, but we got to see all of the trees and decorations at night, which was really pretty and totally worth it. My mom came with us, which was extra fun. It's been several years since we've gotten to all go, and i'm happy we got to see it again! Plus there were carolers and cookies, so it was extra awesome.
• Thanksgiving! We went to my parents' house for Thanksgiving this year, and we had lots and lots of people to celebrate with us. My aunt and uncle and cousins who we always do Thanksgiving with were there, along with my cousin Cindy and her family and my mom's cousin and her husband. We ended up with two long tables full of people. And i remembered again that i really like my whole extended family.
• The kids and i decorated the house for Christmas while Juanito was sleeping. He's not actually a fan of the decorating, and we all are, so we figured that there was no reason to wait for Juanito for us to get started. Katrina and Zane woke up early and brought up all of the decorations from the basement. (If i'd known this ahead of time, i'd have been extremely worried about all of the very fragile things they were maybe going to drop and break, but they didn't break anything at all! Woohoo!) We set up the fake tree (but didn't decorate it). We hung up the stockings and the advent calendars and the mistletoe and all of the other decorations that we put on walls. We found places for the snow globes and snowmen and nativity scenes and all of the other stuff that goes on random shelves. And the kids were actually helpful! Like...actually helpful! This is a wonderful new phase!
• We went to get a real Christmas tree. We met my parents at the same tree farm we've been going to for years. We fully planned to get a "pretty tree," but then we just happened along a really cute wonky-ish tree. The past several years we've looked for wonky trees and haven't found any that were remotely cute, so when we saw this one, we were like, "Huh. We kind of can't pass this up, can we?" Katrina was a little bit devastated - we'd just been looking at pictures that very morning of the year that she thought we were joking about getting a silly tree and then was completely crushed when she realized that we actually were getting a silly tree instead of a pretty one - but she was placated by my mom's kind offer to let her borrow a little fake tree for her own bedroom. Juanito got the tree all set up and the kids put their ornaments in the most ridiculously random pattern ever, and once it was decorated it's really quite adorable.
• We went to Meijer Gardens again. This time we went with my sister Chellie and her kids. Going with different people always makes it a whole different experience. It was fun to see the trees when it wasn't so completely mobbed. Katrina and Zane had fun getting to show their cousins around. Juanito and Houston came later to meet us so Chellie could take family pictures for our Christmas cards. Yay!
• Advent started, so we got to light our first candle on Sunday. My goal this year is to actually get all the way to the last candle. Every year we do the first 2-3, and then by the end we're all busy and we just forget. 
• I got to babysit my friends' kids today. They're between 4-8, and they're all adorable, and i was reminded of just how short kids' attention spans are at this age. And also how much little kids like to touch All! The! Things! They were all very disappointed in me for not having more toys around for them to play with, but my kids weren't home, and i didn't want to offer their toys without their permission. I did teach them "Guess Who," and that continues to be a game that every single kid ever loves to play. We played lots of other games too, but Guess Who was the hands-down favorite. And they spent half of their time here holding the guinea pig and only stopped when i insisted that the poor little thing needed some quiet alone time. (Me: "Y'know how, when you're really tired and you just want to be quiet and alone for a little while?" All of them: "I never want to be quiet! Or alone!")

Highlights from the past two weeks

So. It's been a whirlwind of a couple of weeks. Some of the highlights:

• Houston got into City High! It's the best school in the city, and one of the very best schools in the state, so it wasn't at all a sure thing that he'd get to go there. We had a backup school lined up, but City is closer and better...and one of his best friends goes there too.  Yay!
  
  He'll have a uniform next year (sort of), so that will be new. I think that he'll probably really enjoy having a uniform, honestly. He's not a fan of having to think about what he's going to wear, and would probably wear the exact same thing every single day if it were acceptable at his school now, so having the only choices be "blue, red, black, or grey" every day? Perfect.
• Easter happened. We celebrated at my parents' house, along with 3 of my siblings and their families. It was warm and sunny enough outside to hide Easter eggs outside for the kids to find. I think i always kind of overestimate either how easy it is to find eggs or how good my kids are at finding things. Maybe both.
  
  (Side note: My kids are remarkably bad at finding things, and i should know this by now. They'll be all, "I can't find ________." I'll say, "Did you look on the table?" and they'll be all, "Yes!" So i'll come and look and ...sure enough. There it'll be RIGHT THERE ON THE TABLE, in clear view. So i don't know why i think that they'll be able to find eggs that we've actually hidden on purpose.)
  
• The kids had Spring Break. The week before Spring Break was beautiful and warm enough for Katrina to be running around barefoot, but then on the very first day of Spring Break, it totally snowed. Like...several inches of snow. And i had a tiny bit of hope that maybe - just maybe - it would melt and warm up so we could do fun things outside, but no. It was cold and snowy and rainy and COLD the entire week. Sigh. They went back to school yesterday, and today is bright and sunny, and it's supposed to get warmer in the next week. So maybe we might possibly get spring after all? Hopefully?
  
• Katrina's and Zane's rooms have been disasters for far, far too long, and i finally reached my limit of being able to ignore them. Katrina's was especially disastrous, so i started there. The first day of Spring Break, i was all, "Okay! We'll clean Katrina's room and then Zane's room and then i'll take a shower and have a little time before dinner!" Except...no. That is not what happened at all, because i seriously underestimated just how insanely messy everything was in there. We went through every drawer and box and shelf, getting rid of giant bags full of garbage, recycling, and stuff to give away. We organized and sorted and TWO FULL DAYS later, her room was finally clean.
  
  I took Sunday off, and then on Monday i tackled Zane's room with him. His room was actually less work, partly because he's not quite such a packrat, and partly because he just doesn't have as many drawers and closets and random places to stuff things. We finished cleaning his room in less than a day. Yay!
  
  One really positive thing i will say about cleaning the kids' rooms? They were both really, really cooperative and helpful and not at all complain-y about having to clean. Their positive attitudes made it a lot less horrible than it could have been.
  
  They are both under strict, "You WILL keep your room clean!" orders.
• Houston and i spent a lot of free time during Spring Break playing games. Skip-bo, Phase 10, Uno, Sequence, and Farkle (or 10,000) were regulars. I taught him how to play Rummikub, and so far he isn't a fan...but i'm confident i can win him over. Or at least wear him down....
  
  I love playing games. I grew up playing games with my family. My Mom's entire family are totally card players, so when we'd get together with them, there was always a game of cards happening. (They even broke out the cards and played a game during our wedding reception.) Juanito, however, isn't really a fan of games. Nor are most of my friends. So i'm really happy that my kids are getting old enough to play actual games. I mean, Chutes and Ladders and Hi-Ho Cherry-O are just not exactly "fun games" for adults to play. And Zane loves to play Othello, but it's not fun to just completely destroy him over and over, so i try to dissuade him from playing that very often. But Houston is old enough to be totally competitive in games now, and even Zane is able to be competitive in games like Sequence and Uno. Yay!!!
  
• Our friends Brooke and Travis, who live in New Zealand now, are home for a visit. Travis isn't actually here yet, but we got to see Brooke and their kids! They came over for the whole afternoon on Friday, and it was so much fun to get to spend a long time just hanging out! They moved away from our town back when Houston was a baby, so the kids really only know them from trips to visit them and their visits to us and from us talking about them. And yet, the kids seem to really just accept them as "our people." For a while, Brooke was sitting on the couch, and Houston just curled up next to her with his head on her shoulder. Katrina and Zane immediately kind of adopted the kids as friends, even though they're all quite a bit younger.
  
  It makes me happy that we still just like their family. Beth and i were talking about how we really only knew Travis and Brooke for about 2 years before they moved away to Saint Louis, and yet they're just some of our favorite people. And i'm glad that they like us too! They're only here for a limited amount of time, and they have a ton of people to see, so they totally don't have to make time to see us, and yet they do! Yay!

Family Drawing Night

It's been nearly a year since we last did Family Drawing Night - what with school and zumba and boy scouts and lots of other random things, it's just fallen by the wayside. And i missed it. And the kids missed it. And so tonight we all sat down to draw for an hour or two.

I love that Zane is starting to branch out beyond squiggly monsters that he draws in 2 minutes. He drew a really cute whale right away, and then a great jelly fish ("without a heart, because jellyfish don't have brains or hearts, you know!"), and then tried to think of more sea creatures. And so! An eel and a starfish! 

Katrina copied Zane's jellyfish idea and ran with it. She tried a new kind of eyes, and they're kind of creepy-adorable. And there are some tiny hermit crabs down on the bottom, and they're darling. 

And Houston, inspired by Katrina's art box, brought down the art box that my parents gave him for his birthday years ago, and FINALLY discovered how completely awesome it is. He decided that he actually really likes colored pencils, and he used the oil pastels for the first time, and the harder and softer pencils for the first time, and he was all, "How have i never used this all before!?" Katrina was positively drooling over it, wishing she had one that was that cool. 

Houston's drawing is a "Venus fly." Not a Venus flytrap. Just the fly. I love it.

So! All in all, a successful family drawing night. We seriously need to do this more often.