Hey, look! It's me! :) Katie took this picture at our Christmas gathering on the 27th. I am so excited that ALL of my sisters are going to be present at Mary's baby shower in March. It's been a long time since we were all together. Well, only a year, I guess, but ... it feels like a long time!

Paul is here! He arrived yesterday and will be here until Sunday. (Oh, dear. I guess that's tomorrow, huh?) I am so excited to have him here. I used his visit as an excuse to redo the boys room. I took apart the bunkbeds. Well, they sort of ... fell on me! But no bones were broken, so it's all good. Kayte came when I called for her and helped me get them apart! And the boys and I spent hours sorting through toys and junk. We took two full bags of papers and what-not out of their room! Can you believe that? And we moved the dresser, put the TV and DVD player on top, moved the hulking shelf thingy into the closet ... I LIKE their room now! It's much more open seeming. All we still really need is a rug and some curtains. (We have blinds, but a little color would be nice.) I'll have to see what I can do about that soon.

Today, Paul and I are going to go see Doubt. The closest theater that's playing it is in Tigard! But ... oh, well. I'm up for an excursion. Libby sent me money and told me that I simply MUST go see it, so ... I shall! I don't even remember when the last time was that I saw a movie in the theater without the kids. (Poor Kayte has been conscripted into watching the boys.)

In another positive note, Paul has agreed to watch the boys for me again this summer. I'm not sure where Libby and I are meeting up this year, but we plan to spend a week together in July. We've talked about Tin House conference, here in Portland, but in addition to money for a plane ticket to get her here, the conference costs $1,600. Each. Yikes. So ... I suspect, unless we can get scholarships, we'll be looking at meeting up somewhere else. But I'm really touched that Paul would agree to come back here again and take on this clan. He was pretty exhausted when I got back from Wisconsin!

Well, I'd better go and make breakfast for this crew. Yes, yes, I do realize that it's 10 a.m.! But the boys have only been up for a half hour. I think it's going to be a bit of an adjustment on Monday getting back to The Routine! We've been spoiled with three weeks of late nights and lazy mornings ...