Gingerbread Houses

Aunt Katie, Uncle Eric and little Aiden came over yesterday to help with the Great Gingerbread Madness of 2016.  This year evolved into a Star Wars theme, with an assist from some Hanukkah Gelt.

Cookie Season

 When I was a kid, my dad and I made cookies every year for the church's Christmas Eve service. This year, Meme and Aunt Gail gave me my childhood cookie cutters.  So we baked, and decorated, and drank champagne for good measure.

Snow Day!

Well, not really.  It's Saturday, so nothing's cancelled.  And it's supposed to start raining soon, but we'll take what we can get.  The kids woke us up this morning clamoring for snowpants and boots and hot chocolate.

Sweet Sophie

Thanksgiving

Wow.  When it comes to turkey (and friends) we are seriously blessed.  If you count the two feasts at the kids' schools, I had a total of FIVE thanksgiving meals this year.

A quiet moment during a busy time.

The kids table at the Lewin Friendsgiving

Our much smaller kids table at the neighbors

Green bean casserole, half topped with jalapenos.  Brian's out of control, people.

Finishing up the last of the coconut custard pre-pie.

Appetizers!

The girls.

Kitty Love

Poor, sweet, long suffering Sophie has recently been diagnosed with cancer.  I'm bringing her to a kitty oncologist this week, and hopefully we'll be able to keep her happy and healthy enough to stay with us for a while longer...

Philly Half Marathon Weekend

I've recently stepped up my running regimen and decided to run the Philly Half Marathon.  And I finished in 2 hours, 10 minutes, which is around 5 minutes faster than my best run ever before, and a full 10 minutes faster than my last half marathon in March.  So that was great.  But even better was getting to stay with family and play with cousins and visit old friends and all that wonderfulness.

My friend Kevin and me in the morning light prior to the race.

Immediately following the race we met Aunt Nan for dim sum and then visited Uncle Neil.

And then we got back to Aunt Mary's and this happened!  Sure, it wasn't yet Thanksgiving, but there's no room for Scrooges when you're having this much fun.

Also fun?  This gang.

Ellie, Jack, and Bob

Voting

So....we had an election.  And it didn't go quite as I hoped or expected it would.  Kids, if you're reading this some day in the future, it means the world somehow averted the upcoming apocalypse, and I'm very glad to hear it.

This picture was taken after Ellie and Gabe went with Brian to vote in the morning, when we were still excited and happy, and full of enthusiasm.

Halloween

God.  Halloween in Sleepy Hollow country is exhausting.  Fun, but exhausting.  We had a wicked awesome block party on Saturday before the town parade, and then had to do it all over again for Halloween on Monday.  Thank god for coffee.

Ellie Turned 7!