Pre-Vegas catch up

A sign that I am finally caught up on most things is a clean laundry room/ locker room and a blog post. Check and check. Ready for a couple weeks off here. The lack of driving alone means so much more time to get stuff done or sit around reading (or watching Brooklyn 99, which is hilarious). 

 Emily got a beautiful Venetian mask from Aunt Bridget who got it in Venice. I think. Anyway, Emily loved it so much that she wore it to school and kept it on most the day. Her friends asked why she was wearing it and any other Keenan child would have died of embarrassment, but no, she loved every minute of attention.

 Patrick's Christmas concert. I can't even pick him out of the "angel choir" in all their white shirts. He sometimes sang and usually did the arm motions, albeit abbreviated ones, so as not to draw attention to himself. Meanwhile Emily in the audience could barely contain herself and was doing the motions along with them.

 So innocent and happy that the concert is over.

 An amazing chocolate cake from Radina's, sampling it for the Gala, those meetings are hard work! We finally determined that the flavor combination is similar to a Little Debbie Swiss Cake roll, except fresh and a hundred times better. They later sold a miniature version at the Bake House and I bought it and then came home to find cookies from three different friends. Oh and cupcakes from school, so a sugar overload day but we managed.

 I took the girls to the Discovery Center to see Santa and go on carriage rides one Saturday when Sean was working or something. Patrick is afraid of Santa so he opted to stay home.

 All the girls together, Emily so happy to get her present request in to Santa. Let's see if Santa brings the right thing... hard when someone keeps changing her mind.

 It ended up being much colder than we expected so we were grateful for the blankets in the wagon.  Kept meaning to go again in the evening to see the lights but somehow we have been busy or too tired every night this month.

 Thanks Obama. No really, no sarcasm. I buy so much food that this included $1 off per gallon. Almost makes the up to 6 trips to school per day tolerable.

 Megan went and did a fun run one Sunday with her friends from volleyball. Amelia and Bonnie have enough tutus for three.

 Finally took Anna to get donations for the animal shelter after collecting them at her birthday party and getting some gift cards. Gabbie missed the party so she went with us to see the animals.

 Checking out the cat room. No kittens so I really wasn't tempted to give in to the begging.

The girls with the Australian cattle dog. Yeah, sounds like that dog needs to run a lot, NO WAY.

 Anna's band concert, playing Sean's old saxophone. When he opened that case up this summer to get it in shape for playing there was a Guns 'n' Roses cassette tape in it. The kids were mystified. If it had been Poison or Whitesnake I would have been questioning my marriage. Ha!

 Megan in her third year of flute, with Heather's flute. Notice a trend here: free instruments. Let's predict what Patrick and Emily will play... By the way, not bad for an iPhone photo! Always happy to not lug my heavy Canon around.

 More relaxed photo.

 I took Megan and a couple friends (sorry about the eyes Amelia, best shot) to see Cloverton, a Christian rock band that is from Manhattan but is well known nationally. Not that we would know as I've always been a little suspicious of Christian rock, but they were really good and the songs were great. When I compare the lyrics to those of Katy Perry or many others, I guess I should be checking out the Christian rock stations for the kids in the car.

 Set up like a real band. This was surprising to me. Then they started to play and sounded like Counting Crows meets Bare Naked Ladies. Then the lead singer started hipster dancing around the stage like the guy in The Killers. But they were singing about God and Jesus and heaven and then they did Christmas songs too. After all, it was a Christmas concert.

Lyrics on the backdrop so we could sing along and embarrass our preteens. I did try to buy them CDs or t-shirts but Christian rock bands are not very good at fleecing people of money. They only had a couple people working the table and after 30 minutes of waiting, we bailed and figured I could buy online. And then I forgot until this moment. Hmm. I could do that now but Brooklyn 99 is calling.