Family Birthday Party

On Saturday, December 7th, we had our November/December birthday party celebration for Brianna, Bruce, and Aaron. I remember also sharing some of my August birthdays with Grandpa Henry and Uncle Jim when we would all be visiting Newman Grove in the summer at the same time. It just made sense.

Daniel loves Elbow Grease books

new pink cat plates

never knew you could make a bunch of brats in the oven!

Brianna's new book station

I made an airplane lemon poke cake (okay, the cake was probably more for Aaron than the other birthday people, but I don't think anybody cared), oven roasted brats, salads, beans, and chips. We put three extra leaves in our (new to us) dining room table, and managed to squish ten chairs around the table, plus the high chair for Daniel. Let's just say that it was pretty cozy.

I think everyone had fun. We had Christmas socks in party bags, and remembered to draw names for Secret Santa. And, Aunt Diana was able to experience it all with us! 💕 

Thanksgiving 2024

Katie and Avi hosted Thanksgiving dinner at their home this year. People brought dishes to share, and I brought mashed potatoes, the cranberries, and a pumpkin cheesecake that I've been thinking about making for quite some time. There were the usual traditional sides, plus a new wild rice squash salad from Jake and Brianna.  

special mashed potatoes

Cranberry and Delicata Wild Rice Salad

cranberry lemon bars, apple pie, apple cider cake from Patricia, pumpkin cheesecake

pumpkin cheesecake

We even had special guests of honor attend ... Patricia and Richard! Patricia played kitties with Aaron, which he LOVED. And, I loved being able to sit and talk with the first friend I met when we moved to Minnesota...

Patricia and Richard

We forgot to draw names for our Secret Santa gift exchange, but decided we'd do that at the upcoming December Birthday gathering in a couple of days. 

November Book Club Beauties

We had November Book Club Beauties here on Sunday, November 24th. There was much to talk about, with Cathy just returning from her son's wedding in the UK, and both Kat and I needing to process the recent deaths of both her dad and my mom. 

egg bake, it's what's for lunch

Hello

pumpkin cheesecake brioche

Chocolate Babka

We decided to take a break from Jody Picoult novels, at least for now, and settled on our new selection for next month being The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. This is a novel taking place in Minneapolis during the time of the beginning of the Covid virus, and also during the time of George Floyd's murder. My friend, Shelley, had just finished reading this book for her book club, and loaned me her copy to read.

Lunch was egg bake, sweet kale salad, bacon, fancy breads, fruit, a zippy cheese ball made by Cathy, and raspberry sangria. Bruce and his sister Diana (who was visiting us for the month) spent the afternoon at Katie and Avi's. Our next meeting will be our December Christmas gathering at Mona's. 💕

practicing selfies with Cathy's selfie stick

Five years Old

For Aaron's 5th birthday this year, Katie planned a naturalist themed party for him. In addition to all the animals having really great names, and the ducks being pretty smelly, it seemed that Aaron loved holding the bunny rabbit most of all.

We also had a couple of naturalist birthday parties here when our kids were young, and what I remember most, is doing constant head counts on cockroaches running around a sheet on the living room floor, and wearing a large snake around my neck, which was pretty bold now that I think about it. The naturalist told me that these particular cockroaches wouldn't thrive in Minnesota weather, but I wasn't taking any chances on one escaping...

hedgehog 

One duck was named Fiona 

Daniel was quite interested in the ducks.

There was pizza from Pizza Luce, and a strawberry cake decorated with hedgehogs plus a sparkler candle on top. There was also veggies, chips, cookies, and a chocolate cake, but the strawberry cake was especially rich and decadent.

Gifts from cousin Stellan

Next year, Aaron will be starting Kindergarten, which is a hard thing to believe.