Thanksgiving and Leif's Birthday Party

Our Thanksgiving was pretty low-key, which is how we like it. In the morning my mom, Austin, and I all ran the Loveland Turkey Trot. Austin's brother, Brent and his wife, Niccolle, also ran, but we only saw them for a few seconds at the beginning. It was only a 5K, but I was pretty impressed with Austin, who hasn't run in a couple of months and usually only runs about a mile or a mile and a half at a time. He pushed the stroller with both of the boys almost the whole way and lead the way the whole time (except the last 20 yards or so, when I sprinted in front of him and beat him across the finish line :) Here I am pushing the stroller at the beginning of the race.

We spent the afternoon baking birthday cupcakes (Asher was thrilled to help mix them up) and pumpkin pies. We had Thanksgiving dinner at Austin's parents' house, then had Leif's party there. We just had a few games--Thanksgiving Bingo, a pinata, and tape the crown on Leif (kind of like "pin the tail on the donkey").
The theme for Leif's party was "crowns" so I made a crown for him to wear and decorated the table and cupcakes with crowns. Here is a picture of the cupcakes with Thanksgiving dinner in the background:

Leif isn't much of a fan of cupcakes, he only at a few crumbs and ended up mostly just playing with it. But he ate a bunch of pumpkin pie later on. I guess its fortunate for him that his birthday will always fall around Thanksgiving.

 Leif was pretty aloof during most of the party and Asher was really busy playing with trains, but their cousins seemed to enjoy it. Leif got some fun presents, which his cousins enjoyed opening much more than he did, but he enjoys playing with them when Asher isn't trying to steal them from him. Here he is trying to open a present.

Here is an action shot of the pinata. It may look like there is just a streak in the photo, but those are the goodies falling out of the pinata. (It was a pull-string pinata, so it was easier for Leif to open, although his cousins ended up needing to help him to get it open)