Picture Day!

So when Nonie was visiting we had our art teacher, Ms. Kenesey, who is also a professional photographer, take pictures of our family. So without getting into too much narrative,  the whole group headed over to beautiful Humboldt Park about a mile from our house and to follow you will see pictures of Mabel, me, Pax, Mom and Pax, Mae and Dad, Nonie and Mae and me, Nonie and mom and Mae and me. Okay, you get the picture (get it - get the picture?), here we go...

Um, Mae started to get a little bit tired of smiling.

Nonie = 90

And backing up a couple weeks ago...

Well, there we were, minding our own business, when Nonie came to visit for the weekend so we could celebrate HER 90TH BIRTHDAY!!!

I know, right? Amazing. Not only that, if you hung with Nonie for about 6 seconds you'd realize she's actually about 36 posing as 90.

And it was almost Halloween, so you know what that meant - carving pumpkins.

Here's Mae's go at it:

Meanwhile, Nonie couldn't decide what the heck she was going to do.

In the end, though, it all worked out nicely.

Meanwhile, Aunt Debbie and I were still trying to get that mess of a heap of pumpkin muck cleared out of my pumpkin. By the way, Aunt Debbie also played "Book Fairy" that weekend. Every time we'd go to bed she'd leave a book for us by our bed. And every time we woke up and went downstairs for breakfast, next time we came up? Another book or two on our beds. Being the gigantic bookworm I am, you can pretty much figure out that the Book Fairy and I are pretty tight.

In the end, a wild success, I'd say.

And it wouldn't be a birthday without a big old party, so Uncle Brian, Aunt Tasha, Eli, Zaya and Nana & Papa all came down and we had ourselves a nice little celebration.

Mom decided to order from one of our favorite Italian places - a must with a Nonie with the name Mufalda Anita Bocelli - and we got it on.

And then we served cake...

And Pax served the ice cream. Only he didn't really serve it. He just asked if he could serve it so he could, well, I probably don't even have to tell you, do I...

All in all, the weekend was amazing - other than the fact that Uncle Jim stoke my Blackhawks ticket! - and I'll just leave you with this.

Thanksgiving, 2014

So we made the annual trek to Kansas City to Aunt Erica’s for Thanksgiving and boy was it worth it.

EVERYONE came this year – Ayla, Alyssa, Jered and Aunt Jan from New Mexico; Nonie, Deb and Uncle Jim from New Hampshire; Grandma and Grandpa from Nebraska and all five of us from Chicago.  Tons of fun, lots took place:

I got pampered bigtime and we did the hair train with our cousin Alyssa.

We played with Ayla for an entire day in Kameron’s closet with all her old dolls and toys.

We hung with Mom a lot; it was her birthday after all.

I took up the saxophone… and then later we played dress up rock band.

Mae did her thing in the kitchen (she is TOTALLY the Sous Chef of the family). She made a turkey apple with Aunt Jan...

And here you can see her with Aunt Debbie preparing the fruit turkey.

What’s a fruit turkey?  Well, you start with a piece of fruit…

 And then about 30 minutes later you have a fruit turkey.

And we interrupt this program to give a nod to the trio of head chefs - Nonie (Claus), Grandma and Aunt Debbie!

Pax spent a lot of quality time with Grandma, played peek-a-boo at breakfast...

 And hung out in an empty box a lot (I know, right? Like, what?)...

And owned it at shuffleboard

And our most favoritest thing we did was spend time with Aunt Erica’s dogs. We took them for walks, gave them treats, let them out and back in and did a whole bunch of snuggling with them.

Mae always gets lots of kisses from those doggies.

And then, on the way home, Mae found her shadow, which she lost about 3 months ago. Thank goodness we found it, somewhere near St. Louis.