Welcoming a Newcomer

This weekend was my nana's big 76th birthday! I bought her some Thermacare patches as a present. She loved them! I'm such a good granddaughter, even though we all know Nana doesn't like me.

I love this picture, 'cause poor Derrick spent what seemed like forever trying to blow out Nana's two candles!

Anyway...
Our family got together this weekend for not only Nana's birthday, but also to welcome my new cousin to the family. I haven't mentioned this to many people, but it's really exciting news! I have a cousin that my aunt gave up for adoption 31 years ago. I've known this for a while, but never really thought too much about it, 'cause it's kinda hard to imagine that I had a cousin somewhere out there so close in age. I mean, I could've been hanging out with him at bars for all I knew! My aunt has always been registered so that he could find her if he ever wanted to. Well, over the past two months he went through the steps to get in touch with my aunt, and came up this weekend to meet her (he's from Long Island). While he was at it, he got to meet the rest of us on Saturday. Kinda crazy!

The cousins (minus Ryan, Jeff, Lindsay, Sean & Jack)

Oh, and I'll have you know that I made Christmas cookies to take to my nana's on saturday, and they were loved by many! Hopefully I will continue to improve my baking skills!