Monday, October 27, 2008

Birthday Celebration



"Birthday Season" is here for our family. Birthdays start in September and proceed through May, with the exception of April. We had a combined celebration Sunday for Jess (September), Kristen and Sam. Sam was born on his Aunt Kristen's birthday last October. Jess is Sam's mom:)

Nine of us were here for this gathering- 3 missing from our family of 12. Ben and Lisa live in Pittsburgh and Jonathan wisely chose to stay in Milwaukee and study for an approaching crucial exam. We missed them, but did enjoy talking to Ben on the phone, catching up with news of his work at school and Lisa's new job. Several of us spoke/texted to Jonathan on the phone on Saturday as he studied in the library of the UW campus. As Dad always says, "study hard", Jonathan!

For lunch we had a variety of three soups- chili, vegetable and broccoli cheese. Pickles, crackers, cheese spread, rolls and butter along with sweet tea, peach tea and lemonade served on the side.

The soups helped warm us up on this crisp Autumn day. In the early afternoon we looked out to see a few snow flurries falling along with the leaves in the wind. Remembering last winter's record snowfall of over 100 inches, we are not wishing for an early return of winter this year!

In the afternoon, we enjoyed just being together again- some stayed around the kitchen table for a while to chat, while others moved to the living room to relax.

Little Sam napped for a couple of hours and then birthday gifts were opened and we enjoyed Dairy Queen ice cream cake. Sorry for the lack of visuals-- I was having too much fun being Grammy and forgot to snap pictures of the day, except the one of Sam opening a gift.

Of course, our main entertainment for the day was to watch Sam walk around discovering Grand-dad and Grammy's house with hallways to walk and cabinet doors to skillfully open and close (and for some reason said "salsa" each time) So cute:).

He is learning new words, which we think is adorable:) What an amazing amount of discovery and learning is going on with that little guy each day! And he is such a happy little boy- that's what is neat! Okay, I'm done for now. I'll stop reporting his every move:)

I also want to say how much we love and wish Kristen and Jess, our beautiful daughters-in-law, Happy Birthday! We celebrate their lives, and the blessings that they are to our family! We love you!

5 comments:

Lill said...

Hi.
I can tell you all had a great time together:)The family means alot, and it is so nice that you all spend time together:) I realy enjoy reading you blog:)) Have a nice day.
Cheers Lill

Lill said...

Hi Again:)
Thank you for your comment on my blog:) My daughter enjoy the weather in Dallas:)) Almost Norwegian summer even in the "Winter":) Here back home the first snow arrived yesterday, and I am not so happy about that. We will have about 5 months with winter before the spring, and It will be hard!!!
Take care:)
Cheers Lill

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday to your family members! That first birthday is always special. I have two nephews with birthdays today, one turning one and the other turning two. Sounds like you had a nice celebration.

Lady Katherine said...

Grandchildren are wonderful, and that special family time. Thanks for the sweet note on my blog. I just going through so big test next week and fear the out come. It can go two ways that are bad, are one way that may, can be fixed at a later date, with just watching it. I never know. I go to the doctor and sometimes the put me straight in to surgry. So I am just trying to be prepared.

Ben said...

I love the "salsa" comment! I'm somewhat surprised given Jess's amazing salsa that it wasn't among Sam's first words...