Our winter song

I took Emma to the eye doctor.  She is getting contacts.  At long last for her and really, already? for me.  Her eyes were dilated and in the twilight as we left the doctor's office, the lights from cars were hurting her eyes.  She dug out some sunglasses.

I love this girl.

And I have been loving the weather!  Cold and sunny.  It's what winter should be.  None of this cool damp stuff, give me crisp bone chilling sunshine.

We went to Seattle on Friday afternoon and our two older children went to an acting workshop and to see Oliver! at the 5th Avenue Theater.  Adam and Mark and I went to the flat box mecca, IKEA.

Here is Mark hitching a ride on our purchases.  If Adam ever decides to change careers he has a real future as a patient IKEA shopper and expert packer of big boxes into minivans. 

My favorite part of this picture is that Mark looks little.  Stay little, Mark!  Don't turn 11 tomorrow.  Nooooooooo.

After that we went to a hotel in Seattle.  It was the closest-to-home hotel any of us had ever stayed in.  Adam and Mark went swimming and I...didn't. (Are you kidding me?  The ONLY reason to swim is to cool off and it was plenty cold.)  Then we piled into bed and ate popcorn and cookies and watched Studio C.  Mark and I went to sleep and Adam went to get Braeden and Emma from the theater.  My best advice: if you aren't a night owl, marry one.  (They go pick up the children late at night and you go to sleep...)

The next morning we ate our breakfast in the capacious hotel lobby and marveled about how close we were to home.  It felt like we should be carrying a lot more luggage as we checked out.  (Braeden particularly was a light packer--he brought 1 pair of clean underwear and deodorant.  Emma on the other hand had two bags, mostly books.)

We saw this across the street from our hotel:

A half hour later, we were home.

The rest of the weekend was a whirl of typical December weekend activity. Because there wasn't already enough going on, there was furniture to shift and build  (I have the best, strongest kids and husband in the world and even though they think I'm crazy and are probably cursing my name--especially when they are navigating the bend in our stairs while carrying heavy furniture--they continue to humor me and move furniture.  Then they move it back when I change my mind.)

We decorated our family room tree and it was Braeden's turn to put the angel on top.

He didn't use a chair.  (He thought he was sort of a big deal.)

also our tree is in a never before corner--I like it

Adam snapped this picture that I love.  It's my little songbird on a sunny afternoon, playing the piano and singing and adding harmony to our winter song:

Life is pretty good when you have a resident songbird.