Mommathon

When it’s 64 and sunny in Portland in the middle of February, you take advantage of it. The boys had a lot of fun at the park today playing touch football with some other neighborhood kids.

I had a fairly bare calendar today so I went and tracked down one of my absolute favorite food trucks for lunch. Yum!

We have someone staying at our house for the next week or so…Stanley…Flat Stanley, that is. Don’t know who Flat Stanley is? Well, he is a character in a book that gets flattened and put in an envelope and shipped off in the mail. Classrooms across America have started sending out their own Flat Stanley’s to help the children in their classrooms learn more about our country’s geography, landmarks, etc. Flat Stanley is visiting us from one of the boys’ second cousins who lives in Kansas. Today Stanley went with us to violin lessons. We have been keeping a log of Stanley’s activities while he’s been here and will ship him back with some pictures soon.

We have an eleven year old in the house!

I hosted book club tonight. We talked about everything from the book we read last month (The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig-two thumbs up from me) to our summer vacation plans to menopause to what we are going to read for next month (The Paris Wife by Paula McClain).

We also had lots of yummy treats, some wine and an extra special chocolate cake to send off one of our book club members as she and her husband set off next month to start a new life in Germany.

With thirty kids in his class and a very busy week ahead of us, Colm got an early start on his Valentines.

I got this lovely charm from my friend Dana. It is so much fun to get actual real mail especially when it’s homemade and crafted with love by a dear friend and her daughter.

The boys had so much fun at the school skate party. The money raised was to help fund the 5th graders going to Outdoor School…to help bring the cost down for everyone and to provide financial assistance for those families in need.

Don’t worry. We aren’t getting another pet. I am just working on a little project I have going for the boys’ school. I guess the hamster will be living with us for a very short while, but he will mostly be staying at the boys’ school and will then eventually (hopefully) end up as a pet for someone else when our project at school is over.

Today I was just trying to figure out how much all the stuff for a hamster costs. Dang! Those little hamsters need a bunch of stuff…a cage and minerals/vitamins and chew toys and a place to hide and a wheel to run on and food and bedding and on and on.