Back Again

Hey – did you know it’s November? What just happened??

It’s time for a little catch up. First things first though – I have to wish my awesome nephew a super happy wonderful birthday! Here he is:

He’s a little elusive. Not quite as elusive as his sister, though.

Lots of birthdays this month – Dad’s was on Sunday, and a number of our cousins and their gorgeous kids had birthdays recently (or very soon!) – many happy returns to all the November greats. Hot Wheels hit seven a week ago Saturday, and I’m not sure there’s been a happier birthday boy in history. I’m not sure what it was, but he truly relished this one. As a matter of fact, he started relishing it at 3am Saturday morning.

“Can we get up?”

“Huh? NO!”

I can still hear myself saying, “It’s twenty-to-five, honey – we can’t get up yet,” and himself saying, “But it’s so hard to wait!!!” Finally, finally, it hit six and we all got up. And so began the happiest birthday I’ve ever witnessed. There wasn’t anything particularly crazy. He didn’t get a puppy or a Ferrari. He just had a terrific, wonderful day. There was birthday toast, of course:

And presents:

And bowling…

which was hysterical. We went with three of his friends, and one of Honey’s friends. Despite lots of coaching and pleading, the boys felt strongly that this was actually training for the shot-put, and they’d launch the ball, from the shoulder, onto the lane. Ka BLAM, it would land and then creep its way towards the pins. The boys were all chill. Sometimes they wouldn’t even watch the ball go all the way down the lane.

Yeah. It’s cool. Whatever.

The girls, on the other hand, were completely into it. They each bowled one ball for every turn, figuring they’d help each other out that way. It worked too – we were calling them the Spare Sisters by the end of the afternoon.

This next shot is blurry, unfortunately, but it’s the only picture I got of them doing their happy dance.

After that, it was back to the house for dinner and cake and a sleepover which remarkably had as much sleep as over. How that happened I’ll never know.