October is Birthday Month

October is birthday month in our family!  Marcos' mom was born the 1st, Marcos on the 4th, me on the 8th, and Marcos' Papai on the 31st, which is this Wednesday.  The first week of the month was so full of birthday celebrations that sometimes I'm not sure whose we were celebrating in these photos!

The day before Mamae's birthday we visited one of her missionaries who now lives in NC with his family, and we did a surprise birthday celebration for her there.  It was a really happy evening.  A few days later we did a dinner for Marquinhos, and I know this was his table setting because his favorite fall tradition is brie cheese, water crackers and sliced pear with apple cider.  I think that night was pot roast, but I can no longer remember because almost every night that week was some sort of special meal.  We take whatever excuse we can find around here to call our life a celebration.

It was also my close work-friend Lisa's kiddo's birthday party that week, which ended up being momentous for Gigi.  How cool is Lisa?  Not only were there cupcakes and pizza, face painting and a backyard of fun, but she called up the local fire station and had them bring their firetruck over to their house.  I think that I was as thrilled as the kiddos were.  Who knew that unless they are busy with an emergency, our local fire stations are happy to show up at parties for free to put in their volunteer hours?  Gigi still talks about the fire hat that she received from the firefighters that day.

And it's not a true birthday month without our annual birthday dinner with Kim and Jason and the gang. Kim always makes her spaghetti (we would maybe request something different if Kim didn't have the most amazing spaghetti sauce in the world), and we had watermelon, my mom made one of her famous salads, I made homemade french bread, and Kim brought her Italian dipping oil.  Oh, and we ended the night with Kim's homemade pumpkin roll cake.  Mmmm...

For my birthday my mom and I made balsamic glazed porkchops with latkes, applesauce, french bread and salad.  I am noticing a trend here - all I've talked about is the food we ate that week, but we're not huge on gift giving, so I think that our love language that week was about spending quality time together over the meals we prepared for each other.  

And other activities, like this...