Bowie Bash

BOFFO BIRTHDAY: January 8th has long been a day MPA has celebrated. It marks the birthday of three of our favorites: Elvis Presley, David Bowie and Stephen Hawking. How's that for an interesting trio?

In past years, we've made Elvis-related recipes, listened to musical marathons, watched informative videos and more.


This year, we put the spotlight on Bowie, by attending a birthday bash held in his honor at Central Cinema. They were showing the cult favorite movie "Labyrinth." 

Dressing for the occasion was encouraged, and so the kids made some custom shirt.

CJ chose a famous quote from the movie for his shirt.

You'd kind of have to see the scene from the movie for it to mean anything to you.

Annabelle went with a mash up of My Little Pony and Bowie's Labyrinth character, Jareth, for her shirt. 

For Annabelle's she created the image in Illustrator, and we printed it on an iron on transfer made for Ink Jet printers.

CJ's shirt was made using iron on material and our kind of new to us Cricut machine. 

There were just a couple of entrants in the official costume contest. The door knockers won. 

The night was full of singing and dancing and laughter and maybe a few tears. Such a fun time, and we're so glad we went!

ROSE CITY CIRCUIT: Saturday, we made a whirlwind trip down to the Rose City. Incredibly, I didn't manage to take a SINGLE photo of the trip. Wow. How lame.

We went down for a post holiday lunch date with family. We met at McMenamins' John Barleycorn location, in Tigard. Afterward, we stopped by to see a family member's nice new condo in John's Landing. 

The kids were gifted some nice presents. CJ got a rare, vintage record album . Annabelle received some great art supplies, which she loves, of course.

SHAR-T: Speaking of Annabelle and art, if you haven't checked out her ongoing Shar-Pei a Day series on Facebook, you should! She posts a new drawing daily, featuring a Shar-Pei she's drawn and some kind of Shar-pei pun.

For instance, a couple of days ago, she posted this "electric Shar."

And more recently, an the anniversary of George Washington being elected the United States' first president, she used a "This Pei in History" to post a Shar-Pei version of Washington.

Her cartoons are made using everything from crayons to colored pencils, the computer to an air brush.