Thanksgiving and Black Friday

This time last year we were rushing off to Spain to see my dad who had had a stroke on Thanksgiving day. It was such a sad time after a terrible few preceding months, but here we are, a year later, with beautiful Charlie. It's desperately sad that Charlie won't ever meet his papa, but I know that Charlie will know him in other ways. Rafi still regularly talks about his papa so Charlie will also know my dad through him.

We were glad to be invited by our friends Stacey and Noah to join them for Thanksgiving. This also meant that Rafi would get to spend time with Nico and Rosa, and Charlie would see his new playmate Enzo who is just 10 days younger than him! We had a really lovely time. In the morning we took all the boys to the beach for a walk and were lucky to have blue skies and relatively warm temps.

Raf didn't want to sit with us as he much preferred to sit with his old friends... but he loved the tofurky (even though I had to ask for tomato sauce for him!), and he had a super time playing with his old friends as well as two other little boys who were there.

Getting stuck into pudding!

Playing dress-up.. as a conductor. His head is so big that it was difficult for him to get the hat to stay on! 

"Performing" with the other kids... lots of dancing and singing... 

And as all this was going on, Charlie gave us a smile! Well, he gave Rich a smile (and another one this evening). I think this is the first proper, intentional smile. He looked so sweet!

Today we decided to get out of the house as a bit of a distraction. I have a major clothes deficit (I hate shopping so really have very few clothes) and so we decided to take a quick trip to the shops (what were we thinking?), but first we headed to the bookstore and Raf enjoyed looking at the trains and then enjoyed a bagel while pulling funny faces. 

We basically got to one shop before we'd all had enough, but I did get some jeans... ones that actually fit!!  Charlie joined me in the changing room, though I had to take him out of his moby so I could try things on. He seemed totally nonplussed. 

Recovering at home. He's looking so much older.