Owen started off the week looking a bit backwards. I suppose it's to be expected when we have some lingering reminders hanging around.

Who says birthday balloons are just for floating and looking shiny?

We quickly moved past all that, though, and decided to take advantage of one of the last nice days of the year with a trip out to our local park.

This is less exciting than the balloon.

This is slightly more exciting than the last thing.

Better. This will do.

Max? I don't think that's how that's supposed to work.

Always nice to see these two getting along.

Before we left, we did a little walking around and Max decided to spend the remainder of our time fixated on one of his favorite activities.

He can't resist spreading "Dandy Flowers" as far and wide as possible. Nature knows what it's doing.

The next day was spent performing our yearly light detangling and testing in preparation for sparsely decorating the outside of the house (hey, it's two stories, I'm not getting up there).

Thankfully we have a helper this year.

Before we knew it, Thanksgiving was upon us. This of course meant that we got to dust off our apple processing device and let Max crank his way through a dozen apples or so. Sadly, we didn't get any photos of this process. Guess we'll have to remember to get the camera out next year. Five-pound pie in hand, we made our way up to Sherman to spend some quality time with the family.

That is not Owen's food.

Yes, this counts as quality time.

Owen seemed a bit less interested in Mario than in the nearby stack of pillows.

Again with the hats. Yeesh.

Before too long I couldn't resist setting the camera aside and joining in the fun. Christy was happy to pick up the slack.

This is the face I make when Casen drops me in a pit by jumping on my head.

…and this is the face I make when the developers clearly made an error that caused me to fail.

Alright, enough game face analysis. We eventually shut down the gaming for the afternoon so we could move on to some gingerbread house decoration.

Max was very insistent that we cover all the doors and windows.

He was also not afraid to make sure he was putting the most delicous candy on the house. This requires that he know which ones are the most delicious.

As things wound down we got the boys all ready to go. This means hugs, which Owen is now starting to understand and initiate.

His mobility makes him much less afraid of Blakely.

Did I mention they were wearing the same shirts? Yeah.

Recovery from Thanksgiving came in the form of Christmas decorations.

Max and Owen took turns taking them off the tree once we had them all on. This process continues to this day.

We also created a makeshift ball pit for them. Mostly this was to distract them from the tree.

Another day passed, and we found our way back up to Sherman for a birthday party. More photos with the cousins? Don't mind if I do.

I can't remember why this happened. Maybe that's for the best.

Owen spent about five minutes handing Cindy the same two spoons over and over while she tried to eat.

Sometimes the stars align just so and I'm able to catch the little ones doing something like this.

Happy birthday!

Hats. Again.

We seem to see a lot of these bugs hanging around. Max finds them fascinating.

Forced smiles for everyone! Hooray!

Pretty eventful week, especially compared to our last one. If you want to see the rest of the photos from the week, you can click here. Here's hoping we can get a catch-up blog in sometime soon and get this thing back up to date. Until then, have a good weekend!