Christmas pictures and a 70th birthday

I have all these things I want to blog about but I feel like we're running out of time before Christmas.  It always feels wrong to talk about December happenings in January, so I'm going to do my best to pack it all in this weekend. 

 

Our friends Monica and Rick came over for dinner on the 6th.  Since they were here anyway we had them take our family Christmas picture for Christmas cards.  Megan and Scott have done it for the last 3 years, but we felt like they had too much going on already to worry about our picture.  It's a good thing, too, because it took several sessions and about 72 pictures total to get a decent one.

 

Here are some of my favorite outtakes. 

 

 

And here is the official 2013 picture 

My dad turned 70 this month.  My brothers were taking him to Philadelphia for the Army/Navy football game and they were flying out of Phoenix so my mom, dad and Nick came up a day early so we could go out for dinner.  We went to a Brazillian steakhouse and ate 48 pounds of meat.  It was awesome.

 

I have a very strange piece of hair on my forehead.  It really bothers me.  And Spencer appears to be eating me.

 

They let my dad wear a special birthday hat.

We were in two cars so my mom and Michael took the kids home and Nick, my dad and I stayed for an after dinner drink.

About 6 weeks ago I pulled up my pinterest cake board on my mom's iPad and told my dad he could pick whatever he wanted and I would make it for his birthday.

 

He picked a fruit and nut chocolate cake.  I thought it was too simple for a birthday cake (although I was wrong and it ended up being incredibly complex to make) so he also picked a cheesecake.

 

Fruit and Nut Chocolate Cake.  We cut it before doing candles, because Spencer wanted some and he had to go to bed.

 

Banana pudding cheesecake

 

Spencer did the candles.  I think there were 24.

 

My dad got all of them except these two.

Then it was time for presents.  My mom has been giving my dad metal animals for years.  They have a metal zoo in the backyard.

I started working on a memory book for my dad in June.  My goal was to get 70 different people to write a letter/share a memory they have of my dad so I could call the book, "70 memories for 70 years". 

 

Here is what I learned from this experience: we (the entire human race) are all, with NO exceptions, lazy procrastinators. And after a while I just felt like I couldn't bother people anymore, even though they had promised me they would do something. 

 

It took a lot of work, but I ended up with 64 memories.  I called the book "70 years of memories".

 

He reacted just the way that I had hoped.  He laughed, he cried and he appreciated how much work it was.

 

If my mom expects the same thing when she turns 70 I am going to get started now.