the red plate and two of my men

the year josh and i got married we moved to nashville, TN for a time of leaving and cleaving.  for those of you who know the whole story, you know that unfortunately, nashville wasn't that great to us.  but one of the huge gifts that did come during that time was the ability to spend a lot of time with my cousin and her husband who lived just a hop, skip, and a jump down the road.  tracy and todd had this particular tradition that they had done within their own family for a while, and when we got married they passed it on to us.

the red plate.

what's the red plate, you ask?  well, it's not much more than a. red. plate.  it's more about the who and why of the red plate that makes this tradition so wonderful.  anyone who's experiencing something special - a birthday, the first missing tooth, first day of school, anything - gets to eat their meals that day off of the red plate.  and today was jack's turn - because our big boy turned FIVE YEARS OLD today!!






if you can't tell, jack's stuffing his face with a blueberry muffin (filled with five candles, of course!) before we jetted out the door this morning for our second big event of the day.  another precious man in my life was celebrating a big milestone as well because as of friday evening this week, my dad will officially be a retiree!  his secretary had put together a celebration with several members of his police department and josh, me, my mom, my sister, and our combined seven little people were invited to attend. 



no, the lunch wasn't at the mcdonald's play place, but judging by that crew, it probably should have been.  :-)

**tracy, in case you're wondering, that IS the original red plate that you gave us as a wedding gift eleven years ago.  anytime we've moved it's gotten packed with the 'very important and breakable' box so it doesn't get damaged.  and since i didn't feel comfortable carting it into the restaurant for daddy's big manly retirement party, i'll be serving him some goodies on it this weekend.**