It sort of didn’t feel like Friday last week because I didn’t do one of these routine little posts.  Funny how small habits keep you on schedule.

But I’m all on track this week and there’s no holiday pushing at our backs so here we go …..

 

 

FUNNY

 

I mean, I think my kids are funny.

They think they are hilarious.

It’s a daily something or other.  From London adding to her school list: Be Awesome.  (Oh wait.  I’ve already conquered that.)  To Bergen entering a room and telling us to forget we ever saw him taking whatever item he just took and then waving his hand in a dreamy way and saying “forget” as if it will be legitimately effective.

But also to decorating the tree tonight.

This newspaper clipping keeps finding its way on to the tree, despite my removing it.

 

 

It has zero emotional attachment or meaning of any variety.  Someone at my house just thinks it’s hysterically funny.

Welcome to my life.

 

FASHIONABLE

 

You guys.  I should stop allowing the Title Nine magazine to come into my home.

Or I should work out some sort of deal with them to test all of their products.  Hmm.  Is that a real thing?  I’m adding it to my pitch list.  (You think I’m joking?  I’m not joking.)

These boots.

Called Sinatra boots.  (Get it?)

 

 

 

They are asking to be my friends.  Just politely requesting to come live in my closet and accompany me on excursions.

 

 

FLAVORFUL

 

This week the kids and I wanted Chinese food.  And we wanted to make it ourselves.

We went a little overboard.  We did buy already made spring rolls but we made fried rice and honey sesame chicken in the instant pot and homemade sweet and sour sauce.  And Chinese donuts.

It was a very good dinner.

This is the Instant Pot Honey Sesame Chicken Recipe we used.

 

 

Total success and shockingly simple to make.  And – it’s always a happy chaotic kind of fun when all six of us try to cook together in the kitchen.  Things get messy, but it’s almost always worth the effort.

 

 

FAITHFUL

 

During our family prayers before bed this evening I suggested that we all just say one or two thankful sentences instead of our regular prayers.  I know Thanksgiving was so last week, but sometimes our house needs steady reminding that our lives are loaded up with things to be grateful for.

As I was praying I couldn’t help but thank God for my heritage – the heritage of growing up in a home and in a house with two parents who I knew loved me deeply and cherished me.  And for the heritage my parents received from their own parents that trickled on down to me.  And for the heritage that is flowing from my family memories into the memories my children and I are creating every day as we all grow older each day in the same space together.

Heritage that sometimes looks like this old tattered box filled with ripped up newspapers and tied together with my grandmother’s bathrobe belt.  (No joke.  It’s the tie from one of my grandmother’s housecoats.  Back when people wore housecoats.  Well.  Back when my grandma wore housecoats.)

 

 

Inside the box (the box that somehow survives and boasts my grandmother’s handwriting as well) is a handmade nativity set that isn’t entirely beautiful but is so full of sentiment that I dare not refuse to pull it out and display it in my home Christmas after Christmas.

The ceramic nativity hand crafted by my aunt and passed around most of the women of the family and now – my mom and her sister and her brother and both of her parents – one entire family unit – have all passed from this earth and there’s just this ratty box and crumpled newspapers and the story of hands upon hands that held the baby Jesus and the cow with the broken ear and the random solitary shepherd and his homely little sheep.

 

FEELS

 

This week our Christmas tree shifted our living room into a crowded square of togetherness and we hung all the memories and doodads on its branches.

Jane accompanied us to pick out the tree and I should probably only share a single photo here.

But I can’t.

There’s so much to love in these photos – I mean, Jane makes us look good.  But also – there’s Jane herself.  It’s been so personally motivating and refreshing to watch Jane grow professionally.  She decided she wanted to pursue photography professionally and she has diligently and patiently made that happen.  She’s taken classes.  Forced herself to branch out, reach out, work hard and put herself out there.

And it shows in her pictures!

We are so honored to be a subject of her lens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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