Holiday Fun

We're in the final stretch to Christmas!  

Our life has settled into a pattern of busy preparations punctuated by a fun event 

then another flurry of preparations.  I'm sure we're in good company!

This weekend we were treated to some holiday hospitality 

at my friend Julie's house.  

Julie & I have been friends since we were 12 and now there 

are 9 kids between the 2 of us!  

Here they are from youngest to oldest:

From left: Kaitlin, Joy, Andrew, Jackson, Matthew, Georgia, Jonathan, 

& Jessica holding the littlest, Julianne!

 

Her kids are so sweet.  Truly. 

Kaitlin and Joy had a ball playing together and Jackson, Matthew and Andrew paired up.  The older kids played here and there--but spent a lot of time chatting with the adults as well, and it was a wonderful evening.

 

I love friends that are like family where you can go and kick your feet up and feel relaxed.  

Steve and Dan cooked dinner and cleaned up and Julie and I sat and talked!  

How's that for a Christmas gift!?  It was heavenly.  

Being invited to someone's house for dinner is such a treat.  

I always feel so grateful for the time, energy and preparation that goes into it.

 

Sunday brought an event that I have been so looking forward to.  

My sister in law, Michelle, and I took our oldest boys to see 

The Oregon Ballet Theater's Production of The Nutcracker.  

I love the Nutcracker.  

After I see the Nutcracker it feels like Christmas.  

I love the live orchestra, the beautiful dancing, the story, the elegant costumes...all of it.  

I was excited to share it with Matthew and was curious to see how it would go.  

This was his first introduction to the Ballet and it felt exciting to expand his small world a little bit.

 

The boys were really excited so there was ample silliness at dinner.  

A lot of "Okay, settle down guys."  

But really, I'm so glad that the kids love to be together so much.  

We had dinner downtown at an Irish restaurant called Kel's.  It felt festive 

and exciting to be in downtown Portland, away from our suburban life, 

and the food was delicious.  

The boys thought they were pretty neat drinking Rootbeer out of a bottle.

 

Then we went to The Nutcracker and the boys were so good.  

I heard Matthew say, "Wow!" at one point--he was really impressed with the sets and was interested in how they were able to build them and change them.  

Both of the boys sat so well through the entire performance.  

They were both engaged and asking questions.  

Matthew really liked the first Act, but by the time we got to the second to the last dance of the second Act he whispered, "I hope this is the last one."  :)  

The boys were fantastic though, and both said that they liked it!

Dan reviewed with Matthew how to behave like a gentleman before he left.  

Matthew asked for him to write it down in a list form.  

He then reviewed the list with Matthew when we got home with respect to how well he did.  

I heard Matthew saying, "I did that, I did so-so on that, I didn't do that because Mama didn't wear a coat, I did that, I did so-so on that."  

It was pretty cute.

Another first was that Isaiah spent the night last night! 

They have wanted to do this for so long.  So we brought Isaiah home with us and they were really excited.  They actually settled in very well and I think they went to sleep pretty fast!  They were in sleeping bags in the play room and I took a picture of them after I tucked them in.  

Isaiah was pretending to be asleep to be funny.  :)

A sweet side note.  the bear on the bottom of the photograph 

was given to Matthew

as a baby by my friend Dana, who passed away from leukemia.

Matthew knows about Dana as she is buried next to my Dad

and we decorate her headstone as well.

I recently took the bear out of the nursery and told Matthew about how

Dana gave it to him.  He carried it around for the rest of the day

and has been sleeping with it as well.  

I think it was meaningful to him, which was so sweet.

Anyway, it was a nice end to a really fun weekend.