Thanksgiving/My 30th Birthday

I am not kidding when I say that I have worked on this blog post FOUR TIMES. On various computers, using a variety of platforms. I'm now focusing on a shorter version from my original post or I will lose my mind. I am frustrated with Windows Live Writer (WLW), for not publishing my completed post from Ben's computer.

And I am frustrated that there isn't something better for Mac bloggers. I am really particular in my blogging process - I like uploading to my flickr acct and using those images in my posts, which was easy with WLW. When it was working properly!! I have yet to find another program that has fast flickr importing. Anyone?? Let me know if you have a good solution, because this is really frustrating.

Okay - on to MUCH happier things.

My 30th birthday on Thanksgiving.

Eli pitched in with the cooking prep since it was my birthday - here he is breaking up the bread for stuffing with my dad and brother:

Later, it was a laptop party (and tv party) in the family room while the food was cooking. If you can recall from weeks ago, our friends Carrie and Steve and their three boys surprised me by driving from Denver to Chicago and showing up at our doorstep! We were so happy to have them here with us for Thanksgiving and my birthday.

This is Charlie's happy face while watching his favorite show, Dinosaur Train.

Steve's scary face - he can always make me laugh:

My skinny Gram, who is cancer-free and my favorite 85-year-old on this earth:

Ben, the turkey carver:

I wish I had more pictures of the food prep - my mom did almost ALL of the work and was amazing. The dinner turned out really well and was delicious!

After dinner, Carrie gave me an awesome present!! She put a book together called, "30 Toasts for Sarah on Her 30th Birthday." She emailed 29 friends that were connected to our time here in Chicago at some point and asked them to write messages for the book. I LOVE the book - it is such a treasure! Thank you Carrie and all of you who wrote a message for it. I feel so lucky to have such wonderful friends in my life. 

Carrie, do you really have to live in Denver?? Move back please!

I am so impressed with Carrie - she collected all of the messages, photos, and put all of this together with a site she had never used, which is out of her comfort zone and I'm sure took a ton of time. This was her first photo book and she did such a great job. I love it!

In the meantime, Ben went outside to grab the pies that were chilling on our back deck. He caught a squirrel redhanded, digging into our pies. We threw them away, sadly. But we did have my favorite ice cream turtle pie for the birthday dessert at least. It was a huge bummer about the homemade pies though that my mom made!! Pesky squirrels.

Eli helped me blow out 31 candles (30 + one to grow on):

The next morning - all five of our boys eating breakfast in our kitchen nook. They were really fun together:

Steve was kind enough to offer to watch all of those boys that morning so Carrie and I could meet up with Khania and Rachael, who was also in town for the holiday from Ohio. We ate breakfast at Fraiche, one of my favorite bakeries around here. Almond and chocolate croissants there are DELISH, as are the toffee scones, the cupcakes, the cookies... mmmmm. So good. I love the pulled pork sandwich at lunchtime too. This tiny place is usually packed with people, but it was pretty empty on the morning after Thanksgiving when the rest of the people were out holiday shopping.

Carrie and Steve, you are the BEST!! Thank you for such an awesome surprise and fabulous visit. Now we just need to figure out when we're getting out there to visit you in Denver. 

I was secretly hoping you would decide it was just too far to drive back home and that you would have stayed here. :)

*Get ready for lots of blog posts. It's catch-up time.