Before I officially clock in, so here's a bit of rambling.

Tom's cousin Christy passed away this weekend. We knew it was coming. She has MS and has been fighting cancer for several years. She's only 39. She has a husband and son - I don't remember how old her son is, but he must be about 12 or 13. I only met them once, at Amanda's wedding.

So unfortunately, Tom is probably going to miss Thanksgiving. Her funeral is Wednesday in Sealy, which is west of Houston. I offered to go, but he said I didn't need to. That's good because I have an exam and a paper due Tuesday, would've been hard to get out of that exam. Plus I would've cried through the whole funeral even though I don't know her, and that's embarassing.

In other news, I got my red dress in from Kohls Friday, and it is really nice, like I expected. I also got my Nintendo DS Lite bundle. It's ice blue and came with Brain Age. I was going to get one on Black Friday, but when it became available on ToysRUs.com, I bought it early so I wouldn't have to fight for it. It's really neat, I have Brain Age, Super Mario Bros (which I got for Tom's last year), and yesterday I bought Club House Games, which has 42 games like cards (blackjack, solitaire), board games (checkers, chess, etc), bowling, darts, mahjong, and a ton more. I've also been playing with a Final Fantasy game. Surprisingly, I like it. I always thought it'd be too hard.

So now it's 8...I don't have much left to say anyway, so I'll get to work.

Well, 3 weeks left in the semester, and I am sick. I did so well dodging it, but yesterday I got really nauseous and felt cruddy all day in Edgewood, and today is more of the same with swollen tonsils on top. I stayed home from work today hoping to salvage the rest of the week. I have class tomorrow and I'm definitely going. I have an exam Wednesday. I'm not "working from home" today but I do need to study for that exam.

Anyway, last weekend was our niece Emma's 5th birthday party. Amanda made her a beautiful Fairy Princess Barbie cake.



Emma has great taste in music that doesn't include Happy Birthday by the Ellisons.



Blowing out the candles



I realize now that 50% of my pictures of Amanda over the last 5 years are of her cutting a cake.

Iris (my MIL) and two of her spawn, Tom and Amanda.

Opening presents.

The excitement was too much for Don to handle.

I don't remember what's happening here, but it's funny! Granny & Alex.

Crap, someone started talking about politics.

Right before we left, Alex got on the horse and make about 1000 hilarious/cute faces, and here are 5 of them.

Fast forward to yesterday. We went to Edgewood for Alex's 2nd birthday party. Same cast of characters: Granny & Papa, Amanda & Rusty, Emma & Alex, Natalie, Cody & Connor, and me and Tom.

The kids played in the leaves, which made for a ton of cute pictures.

Connor zipped up his hoodie so he could get buried.

Behold the power of the rake.

Here, we could barely hear Connor saying "That's enough!" Haha!

Tom's having way too much fun with the kiddos!

I missed the dramatic emergence from the leaves by about 1 second.

It's Emma's turn.

Connor is loving the payback!

Iris decided to take Tom's motor bike for a spin. Aaahhhh!

She got off to a shaky start!

If she didn't make it back, we would've put this picture next to her casket.

Tom ran off after her, but soon she took off so fast and so far that about 5 minutes later, when she hadn't come back yet, the guys and kids loaded up in the truck to go after her. She was having a blast, but when she tried to turn around to come back, the motor quit working, and the quick change of speed bucked her off. She was fine though! She might have bruised her knee, so I hope she's feeling OK today.

So on to the birthday activities! Here is the cake.

Alex just wants some cake!

Alex & Rusty blow out the candle.

Who can resist a puppy? Iris' brother and SIL's dog had puppies at her house a few weeks ago.

Tom started a new trend - the birthday monster!

Emma monster:

Amanda monster

Connor monster

Then Connor and Emma decided they could double as kitties, so they ran around meowing, then I caught them licking their paws waiting for Alex to open is presents. Now if that's not precious, I don't know what is.

This is too funny. He was not happy with receiving clothes for a present.

Then, I was feeling like crap, so I went to my parents house. I spent a few hours over there, my mom gave me some earrings she made, I had some chicken and dressing she made (practicing for thanksgiving - it was good!), and tried some wine from a Paris, TX winery. Then Tom came over and they talked politics for a few hours. I was exhausted by the end of that! But I got some cute pictures of their weinee dog, Snickers.

So there you have it, the birthday festivities from the last two weeks. We also watched the fights Saturday night at Buffalo Wild Wings, and I presented with my boss and a doc student (Rebekah) at the autism conference on Saturday. Got some shopping done Friday, which was nice. I wanted to buy some longjohns early because normally they are picked thin by the time I get around to buying them. So I was pretty happy because I found a white and a black pair in the right size! I also got a new dress at Kohls (it's cute - gray striped bottom, very high waisted, with white button-up "faux-shirt", can't find it online to show you!), and ordered the one I wanted but couldn't find (in red) online.

Tom and I ate at Rosa's Cafe in Highland Village, which is always nice. It was a nice weekend, I can't believe it ended with sickness! BLEH!