A Feast of Night Night

Owen's first Thanksgiving was an affair to remember with all of the Hunts, Whelesses, and Russells gathered together -- all 16 of us -- to celebrate. For Owen's second Thanksgiving, we gave ourselves permission to stay right here in Charleston, and along with Mom, who made the trip down from Virginia, we had most delightfully cozy and festive day. Even though there were only 4 of us this year (ok, 5 if you count Bruno), you would never have known by how much food we prepared.

Here is Bill working on the turkey:

Mom and me with the mashed potatoes (I insisted we use all of the potatoes to make sure we had plenty of leftovers for potato pancakes. We had plenty alright.):I can hear you now saying, "ok, ok, enough pictures of you guys. We know what you look like. Please bring out the pictures of Owen. Now." Well, I just had to set the scene for you.

Here is Owen welcoming you to our Thanksgiving feast:
Here he is wondering why the hell everyone won't just sit down (Bruno is wondering what Owen is wondering about...):
As we all went around the table saying what we were grateful for, Owen said he was grateful for the term 'uh-oh,' for broccoli (I'm not kidding, the kid can't get enough broccoli), for dirty tires, for dirty shoes, for Bruno, and for junk mail (he has a thing for carrying around an envelope or postcard). A grateful smile:
After our meal, but before dessert, we retired to the living room and played Owen's new game. This game came about a few days prior when he was eating dinner and there were black beans all over the table and all of a sudden lay his cheek down on the table right in those beans and I started laughing and he looked at me and smiled while he was laying there, and I said, "night night!" We did this several more times, and the game was solidified. Now, if you say, "night night!" Owen will lay his head down on any nearby surface and close his eyes.

Owen was playing night night with the door mat, and Mom suggested that we might find a slightly more appealing surface for him to 'sleep' on (thank you, Mom!). I knew just the thing, and went and got the lambswool rug (thank you, Aunt Pat!) from Owen's room.

Here are Owen and Bill playing night night together:

The other game Owen had learned that week was "clean clean!" So after a brief nap, he did all of the dishes!