The Big 40 + Random Tidbits of Life in the Ant Hill

Phew, that was a long title. So as the title suggests Jan. 20th was my Dad's 40th birthday. We had a spontaneous lunch party on his actual birthday and we had the planned party on the following Saturday night.
I'm not even going to try to go light on the pictures because you only turn 40 once and it should be honored. So here you go, a boatload of pictures:

David Anthony is getting so big:

Opening gifts at his luncheon party:




Yes, that is indeed 40 candles on the cake:


He was so fast a blowing all 40 candles out that I couldn't' even take a picture:

John Paul has been excited about this birthday for about two years ever since he saw all the "Over the Hill" decorations at Party City two years ago. So he and Max bought my dad these:

At his second party these were the candles:

They were extremely tall:



Father Joe as well as my Dad's family came over for the Sat. night party:

His parents and sister gave him a gift that night. First he opens the box:

Inside is a present wrapped in newspaper, under the newspaper is wrapping paper...

...under the wrapping paper is more newspaper, under that newspaper is paper towels...

...and even more paper towels. In the end it turned out to be a box of Swiss Cake Rolls. This is funny because their has been a longstanding joke in the Anthony family that when my Dad and Uncles were in school my grandmother would open a package of two Swiss Cake rolls and give each of the boys one of the rolls, not the whole package which has two together.


So Happy 40th Birthday Dad!!!

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Now on to some Random Tidbits of Life in the Ant Hill

Joey loved his pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies:

He also loves all the snow that we keep getting:

And he loves walking! This isn't a great picture, but it's about the only one I have of him walking/standing:

And we all are loving the snow too:



Our beautiful snow-covered street:

Now this picture has a funny story, and I had to post it despite the poor quality of the picture. Last week we had grapefruits in our house and then a few days later my mom called me up to the bathroom and pointed out the window. Apparently a squirrel found the leftover grapefruit skins from the garbage and decided to have a picnic on the tree:

These snow pictures I just took today, the earlier ones are from last week:


Cecilia and I did a watercolor class in the fall and here are two of my paintings:


I've taken an interest in photographing eyes, this one is my best so far:

And lastly, a preview of the March for Life which I will blog about in a couple days (actually hopefully tomorrow.):


Now I have to go make some chocolate chip cookies and then finish schoolwork!

Love,