art museum

On Wednesday, the children were off school and I took a vacation day, and we went on a rainy-day adventure to the Portland Art Museum. It was an unexpectedly great visit - unexpected because the morning began with grouchiness and tantrums and also because previous forays have been marked with a good deal of whining. I gave each child a digital camera and permission to take as many photos as they liked, of whatever they liked, with the goal of remembering their favorite pieces and possibly re-creating them at home later.

We saw a special exhibit on Andy Warhol first, and then spent smaller amounts of time looking at exhibits of Japanese kimonos, Pacific Northwest native art and then contemporary art, some contemporary light/sound/digital installations, and a few impressionist works. We were there for two hours and had a really good time talking about the pieces, comparing them, selecting favorites, looking at the paint and brushstrokes and paper, discussing why art is expensive and why some art is in museums, etc.

These were Sebastian's photos:

 

These are Liesl's photos: 

This was the Warhol piece that Liesl decided to reproduce at home later on - her efforts can be seen in the drawing below. I like how she tried to capture the green grass.

After the museum, we went to the library, and then out to lunch, and then made it back home for an hour before Liesl had gymnastics practice. It was a good day together.

an exciting day

Sunday started very early... at 5 am... with the excitement of a chirping carbon monoxide alarm in Sebastian's bedroom. Steve got up and replaced the batteries and we waited, and it started chirping again. We started Googling what the chirps meant and how worried we should be, while opening up all the windows and doors. Once we felt the house was completely ventilated (freezing!), we closed it up and the alarm kept going off. Sebastian by this point was freaked out and left to go over to the school field, his safe and happy place. We called 911 and reported that although it was not an emergency, and we all felt fine, we thought it best to have someone check it out.

And then this happened:

A whole firefighter crew and their truck, pulling up in front of our house at 8 in the morning. Nice. As quickly became clear, there was no carbon monoxide anywhere, just an alarm that was chirping to tell us it was five years old and needed to be replaced.

We went about our day as usual, but then upon returning home from dinner out with the Hoangs found the neighborhood very dark. Extremely dark. No power anywhere in the immediate vicinity. We checked online (thank goodness for cellphones) and discovered that it had gone out just 30 minutes before we arrived. We got flashlights, lit candles, and tucked the (once again slightly nervous) children into bed. Power was restored an hour later, so no harm done to our food. Crazy day.

Dr. Daisy, super-hero

Liesl went to her room, spent some time with her dress-up chest, and came down as a superhero Dr. Daisy. She had a light saber, she had a bag of supplies, she was ready to do good and fight bad and rescue those who needed rescuing. "Dr. Daisy never loses a fight!" she says. She's adorable and fierce.

jack-o-lantern

Better late than never!! It's about, what, a month past pumpkin carving season? It's nearly Thanksgiving! But we had somehow failed to carve ours and Liesl was sad about it. So on Sunday - now that we're past soccer season and birthday season and Halloween, we hunkered down inside together. We played some board games - Forbidden Island, Qwirkle, Sherlock, Boggle Jr. - read many books, baked a pumpkin bread with chocolate-nut streusel, made leaf crayon shadings, and carved our jack-o-lantern.

 

end of soccer season

Sebastian's fall soccer season came to an end on Saturday morning, as they lost the semifinal game of the end-of-season tournament. His team played really well - they controlled the ball for most of the game and were leading until the bitter end, when the other team scored 3 goals in quick succession. The game went immediately to penalty kicks and our boys lost 5-4. It was a heartbreaking and tough way to end a great game. Seb was sad, but he read his Big Nate book and curled up inside and then ate some Salt and Straw, and recovered. It was a great season with great friends.


Sebastian scores a beautiful goal!! 

9 years of strawberry shortcake

Okay, okay, an exaggeration. Sebastian only started requesting strawberry shortcake for his birthday dessert in 2010, when he was 3 years old. But he's been remarkably consistent ever since - evidenced by the photo series below. November 11th through the years!