In our family, we have what we refer to as the birthday season. It begins in late August, with my niece Blythe’s birthday, and it ends in December with my sister’s birthday (and of course the baby Jesus). Stuffed in between there are four nephews, my sister-in-law, my dad, my brother-in-law, Simon, and now Jude. We have a lot of celebrating to do!

Here he is blowing out the candles on his delicious birthday tarte au tatin. There was also a yummmm tarte au citron, both courtesy of the local French patisserie.

Here’s my folks with Jude in his chair, as we all watched Matthew blow out the candles (that did not want to be extinguished!). It took a group effort to get all of them blown out. As we tend to say from time to time, with tongue in cheek, it takes a village! Oh, there was also a birthday present treasure hunt; Luke thought it would be great fun to hide Matthew’s presents out in the backyard and make him look for them. 🙂  We capped off the evening with a walk through the neighborhood to the park.
Yesterday was my other nephew Benjamin’s birthday (brother of Matthew). We got a call from my sister, who said that when she asked Ben what he wanted to do, he replied that he really wanted to go out to Pops on Route 66 in Arcadia, and he wanted Simon, Jude, and I to go too. Well, what else could we say to that but an adamant “yes!”? Such an honor to be included! Plus, Pops is pretty fun to go visit. If you’re ever on Route 66 in Oklahoma, you’ve got to stop. They have tons of all different kinds of soda pop to choose from. Plus, the design of the place is just so darn cool! The food really is pretty good, too, surprisingly enough. Diner-esque, but delicious! Be sure to get a peanut butter shake too.

Here’s Luke, Eric, and Birthday Ben, enjoying our dinner. Check out Eric’s coffee shake. Mmmmmm!