happy weekend (cont.)

We wrapped up this weekend with a big ol' birthday party for all the April, May and June birthdays in Chris' family. So we headed up to Seattle to celebrate at Erin and Steve's gorgeous home in Magnolia.

the birthday peeps fake blowing out the candles

Samantha, Grace, and Claire

girl cousins (and CP too!)

Our hosts, Steve and Erin (Chris' sister)

Tom (Chris' brother) and Marni

Tom (aka Papa Tom) and Lee (aka Mimi)

Camden, Forrest, and Payton

Boy cousins enjoying Mimi's famous ice cream cake, which can be found at every Drechsel birthday party (and can I just say how much I love my new camera? these boy cousin shots were taken at ISO 2500 and with no noise!!)

We had a great time. The cousins always have fun together. Samantha is taller than I am now, and Grace and Claire are right behind her. Trey (not pictured) lost probably 6 pounds I'm sure when he shaved off his hair. Plus he's grown about 6 inches since the last time we saw him. I got some new shoes from Mimi (lucky me! my feet are just a smidge smaller than hers), and Marni gave me the shirt off her back (literally!) because she decided she didn't like the ruffle (I LOVE ruffles!). Claire had a bag of clothes she was going to donate to the goodwill, and instead let her cousins go through and I snagged a cute sweater. Is it bad to take hand-me-downs from your niece?

PS You may have noticed the Target ad on the right side and also down at the bottom of my page. I applied to be a Target affiliate months ago and was denied (WHAT?!), when out of the blue I got an email today that I was approved. Yay! Could it be my awesome new hyphenated dot com? Who knows? Anyway, I'm excited because you know I love me some Target. When you click my links and purchase something (anything) from Target.com I will earn a small percentage of that revenue as an affiliate. It doesn't cost you anything and it helps this blog to keep growing, so I'd love it if you used them!