Mommathon

We had a FANTASTIC time over Thanksgiving and wish it could have lasted longer than five days. We got to see a lot of family and friends, eat a lot of food and relax.

The boys LOVED playing pool at their nanny and papa’s house. Colm even organized a family pool tournament which, ahem, I won.

We hit some of our favorite places to eat, like Twisters.

We had a fantastic German meal with fondue, a variety of sausages, red cabbage, German potato salad and apple pie.

Three generations of Kelley boys

We had some SERIOUS tears when it was time to leave. Colm was distraught because he didn’t want to leave Maddy (the cat) because “she’s old and will probably die before we get to see her again.” (his words, not mine) He LOVED on this kitty before we left and then he had to give the dog some lovin’ too.

The fifth grade has been learning about explorers. As the culminating activity for this unit of study, they had a wax museum. Each child dresses up as their assigned explorer, writes and then memorizes a speech in first person about their explorer’s life. Liam was Fransisco Pizzaro.

We have a fantastic art lit program at our school. Today was Colm’s class’ turn to learn about folk art of Mexico.

We have had this bird feeder for several weeks, but it took the birds a while to find it. It seems that our bird feeder is THE place to be now and that THE thing to eat is the sunflower seeds. There are a variety of seeds in there, but they really, really seem to want the sunflower seeds. They will pick through it until all of the sunflower seeds are gone and then things get quiet again until I go back out there and fill it up again with more sunflower seeds.

I had to be super sneaky to take this picture. 🙂

Since the boys didn’t have school on Monday, we went with a bunch of friends on a tour of Jeld-Wen field where the Timbers play. We lucked out because the Timbers were having practice while we were there.

We got to go in a suite and into the guest locker rooms. We couldn’t go into the Timbers locker rooms since the players were in the stadium practicing. We also got to go on the field, into the special area where only the big paying customers get to go and we got to see the huge kitchen where all of the food is made.

It’s an older stadium (built in the 1920’s) so it was neat to hear about the history of the stadium as well…all of the events that have taken place there over the years as well as the famous people who have spoken there (two different Presidents).

It was also Sean’s birthday yesterday, so we had a nice dinner out and then came home for apple pie and ice cream.

Charming Billy by Alice McDermott- This is a good story set in the mid-1900’s. It’s the story of how one lie can change everything. Billy falls in love. His fiancé moves back to Europe with the hope that she will eventually move back to the US. Billy keeps sending her money to help pay her way over, but then the love of his life dies before she makes it back. Or does she?

A Perfectly Good Family by Lionel Shriver- This was our book club book last month. Three siblings must come together and decide what to do with the belongings of their dead parents. Most importantly, what are they going to do with the house. This story reminded me so much of three adult siblings I know…three totally different people who were somehow raised by the same parents.

The Good Father by Diane Chamberlain- This is the story of a father who tries to do right by his daughter but seems to keep making wrong choice after wrong choice after wrong choice.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett- This story just did not draw me in. That said, I cried at the end and was left really wanting to know what was going to happen next with a couple of the characters. It took me reading a good 2/3 of the book until I was hooked though.

A Dog’s Journey by W. Bruce Cameron- This is the second book in this series. A beautiful story of a dog and his journey through several lives to be with his person.