dante's birthday

And one more today, just to show myself I'm serious about this blogging business. Dante turned three last month, so we went over to celebrate. We didn't even get him stickers this time!

(Nick started a horrible tradition of getting Maya and Dante stickers with their birthday present every year... which they loved. Which their parents did not. I told Nick he needed to stop or our kids would be given stickers in retribution. So this year we settled with Batman Legos.)

When we got there, Dante was under the table playing Plants Vs. Zombies, as it is his favorite thing in the whole, wide world. Luckily, he was willing to come out for his Plants Vs. Zombies birthday cake. Score!

He looks really angry when he blows out candles. 

But this was my favorite part of the evening. Gray's first time with a jack in the box. He thought it was hilarious to scream every time the bear popped out. Pretty soon he had a crowd laughing (AKA encouraging) every time he screamed.

coming back & friendsgiving

Okay, so I posted... once... this year. I don't think anyone still even reads this blog. But this weekend while we've all been sick, I've been stalking one of my favorite people's blog and missing having somewhere to dump my photos and tell my various stories. So here it goes!

This was our second year of doing "Friendsgiving" and it was just as crazy, but just as fun, as last year. I made my second turkey, which was amazing. Unfortunately, having only one oven and thinking I could do five other side dishes did not work out so well. Hopefully I've learned and won't be as ambitious next year. But everyone else also brought a side dish and a dessert, and other than eating an hour late, it was a success.

Maya making a wish on the wishbone. (Normally it has to dry for a day or two, but Garn accidentally broke it when he pulled it out, so we pretended it was ready to make a wish on.)

This is the part where I make everyone really happy by making them take a group photo before they can eat. Setting it up...

Not setting the timer for long enough...

And ta da! Although instead of setting the timer for ten seconds I set it for ten pictures. Oh well! It's not like people pay me to do this or anything...

For all that work, I didn't even get a photo of ALL the food or of people at the table filling out their thankful cards. Next year I will delegate the photo taking to someone else. 

After dinner & dessert Gray started going around to all the kid plates and finishing them off. Vulture.

Post-dinner games & book discussions. It was a night well spent.