John Family Thanksgiving

Wally's first Thanksgiving was last weekend (before the Thanksgiving date). It was a really nice weekend with Mariel and Jeff in town. On Friday Brian took the day off, so we hung out as a family and went to our ECFE play time together. It was cute that Brian was the only Dad there but still played with all the kids. We celebrated Jeff's birthday Friday night. I made a carrot cake, which failed miserably. Note to self…spring form pan doesn't work with cake batter. So I made a cheesecake instead, which turned out really well. We had to leave it with Fred and Kath otherwise I surely would have eaten the whole thing this week.

On Saturday we celebrated Thanksgiving. We got some really cute family shots near the window upstairs, which are on the right. Wally was especially cute and giggly the whole day. That night though he was up every 2 hours. Blah. But we still had a really nice day playing games and eating Kath's wonderful cooking!

Sunday Wally came with me to church and then to MacPhail for the APPI Showcase recital, where my student Bella played a beautiful piece by Valerie Roth Robous and I played a Scriabin Etude. She played it so musically, I was really proud of her!

More to come in the next few days with all the Family events!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Yesterday was Wally's first Halloween!  I was trying to find costume ideas that Wally and Hazel puggy could wear in tandem.  Among the runners up (and probable future years costumes) were:

• Knight in shining armor and the dragon (Mariel sent a pretty awesome Martha Stewart how-to on this one)
• Bumblebee and a flower
• Luke Skywalker and Yoda
• Mouse and the Cheese

And the Winner:  Garden Gnome and the Butterfly!   (Sorry, the pics were not stunning. I still haven't gotten a grip on indoor evening shots.)

Although I had planned to try and make costumes this year, I ended up buying and modifying costumes.  It was way less work that way and I could be relatively certain I'd end up with something wear-able.  Maybe next year I'll get started on the sewing earlier.

We ended up going out for about 20 minutes with our neighbors who have a 4 and 7 year old girls.  Kayla and Alicia were both very cute as a peppermint princess and a piece of pizza.  We hit about 5 or so houses, and Brian pocketed Wally's candy for his midnight snack :)  Jackie and Justin came over with Colton, who is going to be 2 in Feb, and he had a very cute cow costume on.  We only got about 15 trick-or-treaters this year, which seems to be a little less than last year.  I'm surprised this neighborhood is so quiet on Halloween.  Although when Wally and I went out for a walk this morning, we did se quite a few smashed pumpkins on the street.  At least our destructive youth crowd is alive and kickin...