Pizza Perfection and Other Happy Times

Thursday night we made home-made pizza--a favorite for me, and for my kids. I make the dough, then assemble all these little bowls of toppings. Then I invite each kid in one at a time and they "decorate" their pizza. Avery went first; she put some cheese on, ate a handful of cheese, put some more on, ate some more--you get the picture. Then she methodically placed little ham slices in about a 3 inch area. She added some sausage and mushrooms and then she was done. Abigail got pretty adventurous, and chose pesto sauce rather than red tomato sauce. After the cheese she added ham, tomatoes, mushrooms, artichoke hearts and some sausage. Wow. Then Warren came in. He put red sauce, ham and cheese. No surprises here. The combos you see above are mine: on the left is pesto with mozzarella, roasted garlic slices, mushrooms and tomato. It was divine. On the left is red sauce, mozzarella, mushroom, sausage, onion and artichoke hearts. Yum. If you want to join us next time, let me know! I'll make the dough and then we can both bring toppings!

Friday night was a Blake Family Cousins Party at Cheryl's. All of Andy's cousins--like age 35 to newborn--gather and talk, eat, play Rock Band, watch sports etc. This time we were also joined by an 18 foot high inflatable slide and a cotton candy machine. It was so fun and I love how it keeps us all together and involved in each other's lives. Here is Avery, inspired by her dad playing Rock Band. I took 2 pictures: the first she was seated and playing, then she saw the camera and stood up for this one.

"Mom, can I be this for Halloween?" asked Abigail on Saturday. "I'm a bunny. And I will go up to people's houses and say 'bunny trick or treat' and get candy! And I will carry this bag." And that pretty much says it all. (I said "yes," by the way.)