Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at my parents' house, along with the Roberts' family, Aunt Con and Chris. I didn't take that many pics, so here are the few I captured.

Here Christian teaches Olive the finer points of football. (Ha.) I think the first lesson was about fumbling. She seems appropriately worried about losing control of the ball.

Maile poses with the sourdough turkey that we brought over - I know huuuge contribution Heather, right? Hey, it was a hit.

The group sits down to dinner (more specifically a late lunch, since Mel had to work at 3pm.) From the head of the table, my dad, Mel, Chris, Aunt Con, Nikos, Tyke, Mason, Olive's empty seat, my empty seat, Vernie, Kira, my mom and Maile.

Sadly, Olive slept through the entire meal and never occupied her little chair at the head of the table. Probably easier for the rest of us as she most likely would have been grabbing for the cute little pumpkin placeholders, complete with your name and a lit votive candle.

In case you are wondering why Nikos is paying so much attention to Aunt Con (in the above photo) it is probably because she is promising him more butter for his bread. We all agreed that he would have made Mom-Mom and Aunt Beth proud with the ridiculous amount of butter he managed to consume during the meal. I mean, he did throw in some rolls and a few bites of turkey for good measure.

While we were there we managed to plan the next few Thanksgivings. We figure '10 in Palm Springs (we're already booked!), '11 Tahoe, '12 Evergreen Farm (?? ha - maybe I should have talked to Anut about this one before I posted it on the blog) and '13 Massanutten. Who's with me?? Oh and I forgot to nominate Aruba for '14.

Here are the best of the obligatory cousin shots.

Nikos wanted to start out with Olive on his lap.

Olive's lap status lasted for a few shots until he realized she was sitting on his Thomas the train - at which point he kicked her to the curb. Sibling loyalty only goes so far.

And the photo shoot ended in chaos when Aunt Con started offering up high fives.

The day after Thanksgiving the Roberts family, my mom, and Olive, Nikos and I headed over to the Paramount Theatre in Oakland to watch the Laurie Berkner Band.

My mom took a group shot of the rest of us before we headed into the show. One guess on who melted down for the picture...

The theme of the show was a pajama party - hence all the footie pajamas. The show itself was great - very high energy. Of course, it was also a little stressfull since it was a semi-free-for-all with the kids, racing about throughout the show and dancing in the aisles. While Mel's kids were content sitting in our row, or dancing in front of us (we were front row in the balcony and there was a big landing right in front of us), Nikos was zooming all over the place - dancing, climbing stairs, etc. Let's just say I was exhausted after an hour and twenty five minutes. Thank goodness O slept in my mom's lap for most of the show!

On Saturday (or Sunday? it's a blur) we went on a five mile walk over to one of my favorite breakfast places. We ate outside and the kids did really well (compared to our last time there where we had the hands-down worst dining experience with them EVER when Nikos - accidentally - dumped the table.)

Olive munched on some different fruits. Here is a video of her trying lemon for the first time.



And here she tries cantaloupe.

Here are some comparison shots of Nikos trying cantaloupe when we were in Seattle for Mike and Christina's wedding. Makes me realize that we better get on the ball with O since Nikos was trying this stuff at 6 months and she is already 8.5. Whoops. Second-child syndrome.

On the way home we stopped off at a park to play. Here 3/4 of the family enjoys the sliding boards.