Birthday Fun!

The night before Thanksgiving we celebrated both Ava and Hannah's birthdays with my family. We had loads of fun! Sorry you couldn't make it Phil, Lisa and Taylor - we missed you. It was so good to have Dan, Angela and Andrew home from Cleveland. We're glad they could be there to celebrate, along with Mark and my parents.

Hannah enjoyed helping Ava open her gifts...especially since Ava was more interested in the wrapping paper. Of course, Hannah had the most fun opening her own presents and celebrating her birthday early (her actual birthday is Nov. 27). She was surprised and delighted by her gifts, which you'll be able to see in the photos. Both she and Ava received wonderful gifts - we've already been having lots of fun with them. The adorable sister shirts pictured below are from my parents...somehow we didn't capture a photo with them. I guess I'm slipping. :-)

Hannah helped decorate her cake and we also made a little one for Ava again. Hannah really wanted chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, which sounded great to me - the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I think Ava liked chocolate too.

Hannah isn't having a party this year but she really wanted to do a pinata at some point (she had seen one at her friend Lia's party last year and has been talking about it ever since). We decided her cousin Andrew might enjoy doing it too so we had Uncle Mark hold it (we didn't have a good place to hang it). Thanks for being such a good sport, Mark. We love you! Fortunately, pinatas have changed since we were kids. Now you don't even have to hit it with a stick, you just pull ribbons until the candy is released. Personally, I like the traditional way of doing a pinata but I guess this way is safer (especially for Mark).

We had a great time although the night went by too quickly. We were glad that we could all be together again the next day for Thanksgiving.