For 30 years now, the women on my mom's side of the family have held a day-after Thanksgiving tradition. You must be at least 16 to attend. It's sort of a right of passage once you're allowed to come along. We walk the aisles of the craft fair show held on the Wisconsin State Fair grounds, and always enjoy drinks and dinner after our feet are aching from all the shopping. This year the ladies surprised me with a belated 30yr old birthday celebration.
Thanksgiving was celebrated in Germantown this year. It was so nice to see everyone from Wisconsin from my family that we don't get to see very often. And it was great seeing Matt who was back from the Airforce. Stella was quite the helper in the kitchen! The kids love Grandpa and Grandma's house, but no one ever wants to go to bed! 
I haven't posted in a while, so this is a little late. Cousin Sofia turned two! Right before Thanksgiving we celebrated Sofia's big day with a pizza party. The kids had a great time trying on Susan's hat collection as you can see! Happy Birthday Sofia!
This Saturday was homecoming at the U of M. We had so much fun returning to the PKA house where Jack and I met and have many memories. Bringing the kids back there to watch the parade was a blast. We had a great time hanging out with college friends. It's so fun now to get together with everyone and their kids. Boy has life changed since we were last hanging out at this house!
Trick or treating was so much fun this year. Charlie was my little giraffe and was so darn cute. He wore his giraffe costume all day at day care and then all night trick or treating. He would have slept in it if we let him! Stella was Snow White and was very excited to wear real lipstick. It was fun watching them get so excited. Now I don't know what to do with all the candy around here!
We had a lot of fun this year carving pumpkins. Charlie really liked scooping out the guts of his pumpkin. Stella wanted Snow White carved into her pumpkin, since that was what her costume was. That proved to be a pretty difficult design for carving- I wouldn't recommend it!
A couple of weeks ago, I had to send out a plea to many of my friends to come with me to the New Kids on the Block concert. Finally, my good friend Sarah agreed and we met some of my other friends from work at the concert. We had a great time singing all of the old songs and I even bought a souvenier t-shirt! I'm sure that someday Stella will think that I was really cool and will want to borrow it:) 
We've been busy these past few weeks! Jack's birthday was early in the month. The kids had fun singing happy birthday and helping to blow out the candles. We went out to dinner that night to celebrate at a quiet restaurant without the kids!
