Giving Thanks for 11

One of my favourite weekends of the year. Thanksgiving and Molly's birthday.

It is always easy to be thankful on this weekend. Celebrating the birth of our first born. Enjoying the company of family. Savouring good food. Games. Reading. Fires.

My mom's delicious frozen cake...I can't remember what it's called, but YUM!

Friday night, we had a fantastic dinner at my parents' house with my brother and his girlfriend, Julie. Molly was spoiled for gifts and aside from the accompanying sausages (!), we all ate vegetarian in the birthday girl's honour.

Finny was excited all week to sing her "special" birthday song to Molly. We discovered that the song had to do with flushing a cake down the loo, because "after all it wasn't for you..."

We drove down to Point Roberts on Friday night, after dinner. It's always nicer to wake up at the Point, even when you walk into a cold house just to go straight to sleep. If we wait until morning. four thousand things come up and we dawdle around town and leave after dark.

We were looking forward to the weekend too much to waste a minute of it...

The weather was so mild, we were able to eat outside. Lukey is wearing shorts and a t-shirt!

Is there anything more fall-like than eating homemade turkey soup with leaves all around you on an outdoor table? Answer: no.

Does Eric look like he's enjoying the quesidillas? I'm not sure...

Saturday, we got up and made a quick trip to the grocery store to stock up for Thanksgiving dinner, which we were hosting for the Butler/Sturms. I popped the 18 lb. turkey in at 1 pm. Finny peeled all the potatoes and I made vegetarian stuffing. Pretty much good to go.

Mandy and Jane arrived with veggies and dessert and it shaped up to be quite a feast. 

We made a bonfire and the kids raked up leaves. For a sweet, short moment we thought they were helping. They were actually just making a leaf pile for jumping. Fair enough, really. It isn't very often that we have leaves dry enough to make that sport fun.

Lovely 11

So that's why you were raking...

This picture makes me laugh, I don't know why...

The smell of the bonfire filled the yard.

Look...it really does look like they are working. Don't be fooled.

Just when we thought we might be able to salvage all that raking work once the jumping was done...they started a leaf fight with their cousins.

There may have been a second, small leaf fight after this picture was taken...

We feasted inside once it got dark-ish. There was a lot of food. All of it delicious. And I enjoyed the miracle of putting a turkey in the oven and pulling it out discover it's perfectly cooked...

There were still more birthday present for Molly to open.

And, there was this very special cake, made by Mandy.

Surprise inside...

And Sunday, more time outside. We played, ate, read and did art outside. And at the end of the day, we played a giant marathon game of Settlers of Catan, which Molly got for her birthday. It was pretty darn epic. 

The perfect weekend? Maybe.

But you know what..? This girl deserves it: