Yesterday, we had a secondary Thanksgiving lunch/dinner with Eric's family. Just the 15 of us.
We had smoked turkey, green bean casserole, and all kinds of pumpkin fabulousness. We brought buns and cranberry jelly, which were a big hit with the kiddos. It was a good meal, with good company, and it had been a long time since we got to all hang out together.
Jake and Jeremiah were actually getting along! It had been a while since they'd gotten to play together too!
After lunch, while the kids played, I got to have a concert just for me as the girls practiced their instruments. It was the most time I'd spent with the girls in a year. Most times lately I see them, they are on their phones, or watching youtube videos I don't understand. But this, Music, I could understand!
Here's Lexi playing the cello. She has such a Gift!
She's modest, saying she messes up, but she's brilliant. She shouldn't play poker, I can see her face twitch when she hits a doozy, but she plays with so much more skill than I ever did, it's amazing to watch. I couldn't tell the mistakes unless I watched her face. Even more miraculous to listen. I got a video snippet of her playing her Solo/Ensemble piece for me, but it's like 4 minutes long, and crashed Blogger to load it.
Meanwhile, I got to hear Kaylee play bells for the first time.
She's got great rhythm. I love how her foot flies.
She's having a great time with all of the percussion instruments. And her school seems to be teaching her quite well. It was impressive. And being able to just listen to them play was so calming and therapeutic for me. Around here, we start most mornings with the boys practicing the piano. But on vacation, that schedule gets off, throws me off. This was perfect. I hope they come and play for Willman Family Christmas just like we used to do at Grandma Willman's back in the day.
Erica and Karl stepped away from the NICU, and brought Cole. Cole would not look at me. He's probably exhausted from doing things and going places Every Day. But he played with the boys for a while, and I did get a smile at one point. I gave him some Batman toys, and at first he didn't want them, and was more interested in telling me no, but we won him over eventually. He and his baby brother have the same Willman furrowed brow when they get upset, just like all three of my boys.
Meanwhile, our family members are silly.
Uncle Ryan and Jacob were having so much fun.
What a hoot!
Then Grandma borrowed Jacob while we took the big boys to the movies! Chris, Sam, Eric and I got to go see the new Disney flick Moana. I liked the movie but I feel like they were just setting things up for major merchandising though. I thought, Oh, every little girl is gonna want one of those necklaces for Christmas. And won't he be cute as a stuffie? And I wonder if they can save Animal Kingdom with some of this bioluminescent stuff when the Avatar exhibit flops. Most importantly, when are we going to Aulani, the Disney Hawaiian resort that probably will have Moana huts and dance classes? It felt like I'd stumbled into Spaceballs - the Gift Shop. But it was a cute movie, they tied the merchandising in well. I will say the music was great! I expected it to be because it was Lin Manuel Miranda and I loved a number of the songs, in fact, I was happily surprised Dwayne Johnson really sings his own number! 3 snaps in Z formation for him! Alan Tudyk steals the show without saying a word, and that's all I'm going to say about that.
It was good to have some family fun.
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