A Birthday and a Baby Shower and an Early Thanksgiving

Last weekend was the best, and I think it's because it included almost every single thing that makes me happy- family, seeing my best friends, and lots and lots of good food. Because we have three different sides of our family, we always have to do a bit of a shuffling act during the holidays. This year we decided to do an early Thanksgiving at my parents' house so we could stay up at home on the actual holiday and spend time with Hank's two sides. It gets pretty insane trying to make everybody happy (it's truly impossible), and last year we decided we just weren't going to get stressed about in anymore. So now we don't! :)

We started off the weekend celebrating Henry's 3rd birthday at home- it was a rainy day full of donuts and watching Planes a million times. The night before Hank and I had the best time filling up Henry's room with balloons and talking about the morning I gave birth, and of course I cried thinking about how quickly it's all going by. It's so weird- it feels just like yesterday, but also so far away. Once Hank got home from work we headed to Phoenix for Thanksgiving #1 with all of my Mom's delicious home-cooking and I swear, I could eat that meal every weekend for the rest of my life and be happy. On Saturday we also went to Shirley and Nate's co-ed baby shower to celebrate baby Carson, who should be arriving next month, and I got to reunite with my best college friends. The next day we took some family photos with our friend Emily Snitzer (she's amazing- if you're in Arizona and need photos check her out!) and then hightailed it back to Prescott after Hank went to the Cardinals game. It was a whirlwind, but a fun whirlwind for sure.

Here are some (not the best quality iPhone) photos:

Lately.

The past week has been insane. All sorts of insane - insanely busy, insanely fun, insanely bittersweet. But all good. Henry turned two last week, friends from all over the place came to visit, I had a charity event to attend, two Thanksgivings happened, and we all survived to tell the tale. It's hard to even recap it all, so I'll just let the photos do the talking, with little blurbs in between. Welcome to our last week, via my iPhone. But not via Instagram, so do I get a gold star for that?

----------

Veronica's charity gala was on the Saturday evening before Henry's party, and it was a huge success! She did all of the planning and work behind it, and did an amazing job. It was to benefit our town's Fine Arts Association and they raised a ton of money for a great cause. It was a fun night full of good food, a fashion show, and some show tunes of course too.

And then since Emily and Traci were in town for Henry's party (from NYC and LA) we went out afterward too. I came home and fell into bed with a huge smile on my face- it was so great for all three of us to be in the same place at the same time. It hadn't been since oh, 2003 since that had happened. Amazing.




Then that Thursday (Thanksgiving!) was Henry's actual birthday so we woke up bright and early for a day all about Henry. And what is he super into right now? TRUCKS! So we got H. in the wagon and walked across the street to the construction site to visit the big trucks. He was in heaven and it was a perfect way to spend the morning!



Later on it was time to celebrate Thanksgiving and we had a good afternoon with family, spent time outdoors, watched Henry push around that yellow truck for hours, and ate way too much food.



Later on we headed down to my parents to celebrate and ended the weekend with more food and family. We also got in some football and tennis time, although I couldn't stop quoting Clueless the whole time Hank and I were playing.



xoxo