A Thanksgiving Birthday

Giving Thanks

Today we are giving thanks and celebrating my nephew’s first birthday. I started thinking about everything I am thankful for, and I felt an elephant of an emotional mess coming on, so I decided to stop for a while. Ryan is in Chicago, and I don’t like to have emotional messes when he isn’t here to clean them up.

I think it is okay to give my thanks in my head. How do you give yours? By the way: I am thankful for you. And I hope you are having the happiest of Thanksgivings.

Pre-Thanksgiving

"Rules for a successful holiday:

1. Get together with the family 

2. Relive old times

3. Get out before it blows"
- Brian Andreas

A Date

When is the last time you went out on a Monday night?  Never.  Me neither.  Until yesterday when we had our  first Monday night double date with Ashley and Andrew.

Look how big my head is. Do you like it? I hope this fish face picture isn’t true to life. Yikes. Does anyone know of any magic spells to shrink heads? Other than that, the four of us are pretty much in love.

We started our night at Dandelion Market, where Ashley and Andrew had a light dinner and some applesauce drinks. Ryan and I had some applesauce drinks too, but we spoiled our dinner appetites by eating 9,000 calories worth of chocolate cookies that we baked at home. (And by “we”, I mean “Ryan”. He is really good at baking Pillsbury break and bake cookies from the package.) Dandelion Market is super cute – can’t you tell by its name? They have a wall of shoe shapers that Ashley called clogs, and a giant table that lifts up to the ceiling to go to bed every night. Did you think I made that part up? I didn’t.  They also have leather chairs that matched my boots perfectly.  Did you notice?  Or maybe you thought I was just missing the bottom half of my leggies.

After Dandelion Market we made the long hike over to Dixie’s for Karaoke night. Karaoke at Dixie’s on a Monday night – who would have known? (Ryan.) Andrew made friends with some ex-famous rappers that I had never heard of and Ryan serenaded us and we danced.  Ashley got in trouble for not accompanying me to the bathroom, so she chased me and said sorry. And then I told a girl that she looked cute, but we could see her panties when she was dancing on the stage and that she should be careful. And then she got really mad at me and told me she didn’t care. The end.

Alekzoo's First

Yesterday we celebrated Alekzander’s first birthday.  Ashley and Andrew threw him a Pilgrims and Indians themed gathering, complete with the Mayflower, Plymouth Rock, Indian headbands, and a turkey shaped pumpkin cake.  They also collected 175 pounds of food to donate to a local shelter!  That makes my heart smile.  Alekzander is already starting to change the world – he is even helping to bring a baby from Africa home to his forever family.  This is how cute he looked crawling around on the Mayflower in his special [dirty] birthday shirt:

I really like my little Alekzoo.  In fact, I think I’m going to gobble up his thighs for Thanksgiving [on his real birthday].