Illinois Christmas

Here are a couple of shots from my Thanksgiving weekend. We were in Champaign, Ill., from Wednesday to Saturday, then spent Saturday night Scrabbing with our friends Charlie and Leah in Chicago.

This is Grandma Betty Fern. Don't be fooled. She's a cutthroat Scrabble player.

This is Grandpa Leroy. He's the strong, silent type.

We got the whole family playing some pretty heated games of Catchphrase.
This was (literally) the only time Dan's mom, Phyllis didn't have to stand to stand up to give her clues.

Uncle Steve (next to Grandma) hasn't been to family Thanksgiving in years.
Even he got in on the Catchphrase action. Grandma was thrilled.

Uncle Scott, his girlfriend Amy (finally! I'm not the newbie!) and Dan's brother Chris.

Dan's brother, Matt turns Cole into Super Cole.

Matt's wife, Mary, struggles to support herself under the weight of their youngest, Titus.

Dan runs "Claire and the Baby Tractor" by Cole and Sepporah (Chris' daughter), which he wrote based on a bedtime story he made up for Claire. My friend Tara's husband, Jesse, is set to illustrate it.

Cole and Sepporah doing "karate" with Uncle Daniel. Grandma Phyllis gives
Titus pointers for when he can walk without looking like a drunk old man.

Since our plan for a manicotti repeat performance in Champaign was foiled by Aunt Trish's spontaneous pizza purchase (she wasn't around for manicotti last year), we took our already-purchased ingredients to Chicago. After dinner, we hunkered down for a game of Scrabble.

Charlie

Leah

Scrabble? Check. Knitting? Check. Delicious cocktail? Check.
Life is good.