Fair Week

After I hosted the queen contest, we decided to take Tommy on his first visit to the fair.
We looked at all the animals.

We started with those crazy old goats.
  

 One goat tried to eat my pants.  Crazy goats.

Tommy got to meet a cow for the first time.  (Yes we dressed him in a tank for the event. He had to fit in!)

 He got to see a couple hogs spooning.

He met a sheep too.

We stopped and had a pork fritter and Tommy had to watch us eat.

 He somehow ended up with a napkin on his head.

We walked through the freebie tent and the Care Center was handing out frisbees.  Tommy's favorite!!

Tommy enjoyed his first visit to the fair.  He was exhausted!

Later that week when Tommy was enjoying lunch at Bazz's Eat and Sip with Grandma, Grandpa and Andrew (I, like all other NORMAL people, had to work), they ran into some local celebs.

It's the winners of the queen contest this year!  They said, "Oh this is Master of Ceremonies Morgan's son??"  Yeah, I'm totally a local celeb too.  Haha!

He was LOVING the attention! Happy First Fair Week Tommy!

Human Quadrupedal Gait

(If you google "crawl", that's the wiki definition.)

Check this out.  We were playing "Where's Tommy?" which normally he does very well (but as soon as I turned on the camera, he stopped).  But then he crawled instead. (Sorry for the high-pitched voice. Ew.)  Thought we would share his new skill...



WHAT A BIG BOY!!!

Putting the Great in Great Aunt

Tommy met one of his Great Aunts this weekend for the first time.  We drove to Syracuse to meet his Great Aunt Jill from Colorado.  

Tommy says, "Nice to meet you. Now let me grab your face!"

 He had lots of fun playing with both his Great Aunts.  He had met Aunt Jenny before but babies have like a 4 second memory so it was fun all over again! :)

 Tommy was the perfect gentleman.  Plus he got to play with some really cool toys that used to be his... what would they be... second cousins? Family trees confuse me. Andrew's cousin's kids? I'm not sure.  But he loved the toys!

But that kid just keeps going back to his froggy teether.  He loves that thing!

We also had a family picture taken for the first time in a long time.  Probably since Christmas shortly after he was born? Yikes.  We really need some family pictures!  I'm going to get right on that!

But anyway, Tommy had a great weekend.  Can't you tell? Look how big he's smiling! :)

YAY!

Someone read my blog and there WAS a picture taken of The Thornburgs performing at my dad's birthday party! Hooray!

Thank you to my mom's friend Ann Gwin for sending me this picture! Love it!

Got Carrots?

 I thought it was a Carrot Mustache but it has turned into more of a Carrot Goatee.

We tried to disguise the carrots on a similarly colored spoon.  I'm not sure if you know this but he is a baby so he doesn't care either way.  :)  No fooling this boy! :)

The question to ask is did he actually get any carrots in his mouth?

 Heehee, yeah I think he did.  He thought they were pretty good too!

 Oh wait, I take that back!

Just kidding.  He just wanted more carrots on his face.

A Tribute to the Sixty Year Old

I meant to have these pictures printed and laid out for the party but some things got in the way (lack of time and printer ink) so they didn't get done in time for the party.  (Well they did, they were just printed out in black and white econo-mode.  Sad!)

So here are the pictures I was trying to put together for the party.  Happy 60th Dad!!

 Kindergarten class picture

 Dad and Morgan

 Dad and mystery date

Dad's 31st birthday (same age as Andrew!)

Dad on vacation

 Dad on Honeymoon (Not sure if you know this but that is not my mom.)

 Mom and Dad in Arizona

 Pensive Dad looking off into the distance pondering what other awesome medallions could be out there

 Little Dude Dad

 Dad and Brandon on Halloween (Is Brandon dressed as a hobo?)

 Dad's 25th Birthday (with his Friendo Haircut)

 I believe this is dapper dad at Aunt Shiela's wedding

 Dad and Adam in a barrel

 Not sure but I think this is at Aunt Debbie's wedding (That is a SWEET tux)

After 5 o'clock Dad

Happy Happy Happy Birthday to you, Dad! Wishing you many more!

From 0 to 60 in 1,892,160,000 Seconds

As my dad approached his 60th birthday, my mom decided he should have a surprise party for the big event.  So she planned up a super special party for the night before his birthday.  It was at the Pub (actually called City Office and Pub) in their new banquet room which is perfect for parties.  It's also... 

So the party was a big hit.  Check out the yummy cake.  There was ONE piece left.  We devoured that thing!

There were also tasty appetizers galore. More about those later...

Here's a pic of my mom and her friends before the party got too crazy.  :)

My mom also invited Greg Michael, who's the lead singer in the band Suckerpunch that my dad plays with occasionally, to play at the party.  (Yeah I know, run-on sentence, but I didn't feel like correcting it.)

So my dad was able to jam with Greg at the party.

My dad got a bottle of wine in a paper bag as a gift and Andrew fashioned the paper bag into a makeshift ear horn. (I love Google image search. I always find the greatest pictures.)

It became a running joke of the night.  "WHAT? HUH? WHAT'S THAT?" 

My dad opened his other gifts. He got a shirt that summed up the night.

He also got a gift certificate to Tilted Kilt.  Gross.

As is the case when it comes to the Keipers, the party turned into an open mic night of sorts.

Adam played a few tunes.

WHAT? HUH? WHAT'S THAT?

A couple people who weren't Keipers or related to the Keipers got up and played too. I sang Honeybee by Tom Petty with my dad and his friend.  That was so much fun.

It took a lot of convincing but we finally forced my other bro Brandon to go up and play.  He played a couple tunes also.

Andrew and I played a couple songs together but since I was the only one taking pictures that night, there's no evidence.  But Andrew did perform with my dad a little too.  Andrew and I sang a great version of Optimistic, a not-so-great version of Everlong, and an Andrew-original song called "Six Pack of D****s."  (Edited to protect the innocent.)  After the party, Andrew groaned, "Now I'm going to be known as the Six Pack of D****s guy in Rensselaer, aren't I?"  I concurred.  

I only got a couple pictures of "The Thornburgs" that night and I'm not kidding when I say that this was the best one.  Most of the pictures we were doing our Fire Marshall Bill impressions.  Super gross.

Hey! It's Roast Beef Man! (More on this later.)

Bro-in-laws conversing

Since the party was on Friday night and Dad's birthday was on Saturday, we celebrated his official turning over to the new decade at midnight.  He's 60! He likes to kick, stretch and kick! He's SIXTY!

THE FRUIT INCIDENT: After the party was over, there were loads of leftovers.  Brandon was in charge of carrying the italian beef and the fruit to the car.  On the way to the car, there was a fruit incident where we lost some of the fruit to street casualties.  Also some of the italian beef juice jumped ship and landed on Brandon's shorts, hence the name Roast Beef Man.  All Hail, THE ROAST BEEF MAN! His wife Desi said he smelled like a fried mozzarella stick.  Sexy!

So sexy in fact that Andrew couldn't resist getting an up close whiff of the juiciness.  MMM-MMM GOOD!

But all ridiculousness aside, Dad's party was incredibly fun and he rang in his 60th birthday with style.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!