our week in iphone photos

The kids have been continuing to take music lessons. This week, the boys started learning bass guitar as well as electric. They were pretty excited. And Mark and I were pretty excited to repeatedly quote Paul Rudd’s “slapping the bass” line from I Love You Man. No one in the house appreciated this but we amused ourselves. It’s possible that I made a YouTube playlist of inspiration for Jafta. It’s possible that it’s called Slappin’ Da Bass. It’s possible that it includes Rage Against the Machine and Primus. In addition to guitar, the kids are also doing soccer class with Lil Kickers and loving it. I’ve been continuing to try to get our family eating more plant-based foods. I enlisted India to help me cook a spaghetti squash. She was very enthusiastic until it came time to actually eat it. Still working on that. I have my boys sleep in du-rags at night because it’s a good way to keep the frizz down. The girls are always jealous that they have to sleep capless, and have been begging me for du-rags of their own. In pink. As it turns out, you really can buy ANYTHING on Amazon. On Thursday night, we went up to LA with some friends to attend Sarah Bessey’s book launch for Jesus Feminist.   I got to read a segment from the book, which was a huge honor, and then Sarah read a passage herself. It was so amazing to hear her inspiring words in person as she commissioned everyone in the room. If you haven’t yet, you need to get this book. Even Mark is a fan!   We took our kids to see The Lion King this weekend. I saw this play before having kids and remember thinking that I couldn’t wait to take my own kids some day. It was a fun dream to fulfill.   We went with my friend Jillian and her son, who had seen the show and did the most enthusiastic seat-dancing I have ever seen. So awesome. Pre-show shenanigans. This weekend we also had a potluck for our neighborhood. We’ve done this potluck every year for the last 11 years . . . except we had to skip last year because we were in the midst of moving. The kids look forward to it every year and they were devastated. So it was fun to be able to do it again.   Yes, we put the tree up early. I wanted it to feel festive and I’m too lazy to decorate for Thanksgiving. So it’s Christmas. We were talking about how, the first time we had this shin-dig, most of us didn’t even have kids. And now they are almost the size of the adults, and taking over the house. Why yes, I did throw a party and have the children eat in the garage. What of it?  It was a fun night of reconnecting and a reminder that we want to be hosting friends in our home more often. It’s one of those things we totally value and rarely do. It was a full week, and we’re looking forward to several more days of celebrating Thanksgiving.