Cute Boys Inside Out

It's Spirit Week at the boys' school this week. Since Portland Public Schools have gone mostly Kindergarten-8th grade, many of the things I did in middle school, they are getting in grade school (e.g. student government and Spirit Week). Today was Inside Out Day. Dennis took this cute, cute picture of them when he picked them up from school today.

Sunshine Daydream

Sorta fun to have some sun this weekend. People that know me know I live in Portland for a reason: I don't like the sun...necessarily. I enjoy it on weekends like this one and the one at the beginning of April. I like it when it's unseasonably warm; it comes unexpectedly; it's only a few days in a row; and/or, it's the very beginning of summer. Any other time, I am waiting for the rain to come back. I am an indoors person, and I also enjoy wearing warm clothes - jeans and boots.

This weekend was quite busy actually. The best day in the sun was yesterday, Saturday. I ran all over the place, including some visiting with my parents. Finn, Tucker, and I stayed the night at my parents' house. My dad's recently home after his accident, so the boys have wanted to stay there. Finn likes it when I stay too.

Before going to Elaine and Ole's, I drove Caver and Cade downtown to stay at The Benson Hotel. They had a date that night at the Taylor Swift concert (so cute!!), so Caver got them a hotel for the show. When we drove them down, Finn and Tucker came along. We went for a slice of pizza at Pizzicato downtown and then walked to the Waterfront. I just wanted to get in a little time in the sun. They were ecstatic to look at the half-assembled Rose Festival Carnival rides. I didn't mind them even trying to climb on them, but thought the Funtastic people would frown upon it. I could see it as a serious liability and was surprised that they didn't have more obstacles in place to deter little six year old boys! :)

Oh yeah, Finn said several funny things over the weekend. One of the funniest (and most clever) was when he said: "When I try to rhyme things with Tuck Tuck [his cousin's name], I sometimes almost say a bad word." Yep. He's right.

It was a beautiful weekend in Portland. So many people were out. Just nice.

Luckiest Mother In the World

I had a nice Mother's Day Weekend. My family is so good to me. My parents and sister's family are the best. We are lucky we're so close. My mom has said a million times that we don't wait for a special occasion to be together.

Since my dad has only recently been home after his automobile accident in January, we had dinner at my parents' house. I got beautiful flowers from everyone in my family. Literally. Tulips from my sons and my sister. Roses from my parents. The picture is of the white tulips that Ashe & Finn got for me.

I am a very lucky person. Truly, every day is Mother's Day for me, because I have wonderful kids. I have such freedom to do what I'd like - because of Dennis - but also so much love and support in my friends and family. I couldn't be luckier.

We also went to a birthday party at Finn's friend's house. I've never been to a 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. party!! They went all out - bouncy house and millions of toppings (see small photo) for the cupcakes. Such a nice little party.

Hope everyone had a Happy Mother's Day.

**Update on Ashe's Accomplishment (blog below). He got 20 out of 15 points, meaning, he got extra credit!! His teacher said it was one of the best books in the class. I am so proud of him. He worked so hard on it.

Ashe's Accomplishment

Ashe has been working for the last couple of weeks on projects for school. They are larger projects. This one seemed a little bit easier than the last one he did, but it ended up taking him many, many hours. Probably about 20 hours!! Poor kid. It's an "ABC's of Oregon" book. He had to pick a significant Oregon "thing" (person, place or thing) beginning with each letter of the alphabet and write a sentence or two about it. He also had to illustrate each item with a colored pencil drawing.

I thought the picking of the items would be easy, and the drawing would be hard...well, both parts were difficult for him. He started the project telling me how much time he had and how he could do it "tomorrow". Once we got down to the wire, though, he really put his nose to the grindstone and worked his butt off. Posted here are two of my favorite entries. Since the text for the "P" entry got cut off, I'm challenging you to figure out who the drawing is?? :) The entry to the left is for the letter "P". Leave your guesses in comments - or email them to me at janiceordal@hotmail.com.