What a challenge it can be to gather. For a photo, that is. Two wiggly gigglies, dapper in their hot-off-the-needles Milo vests (plus a Huck Finn Cap that Lachlan was proud to wear). No shoes for one boy, no smiles from the other. 

One had his eyes on the pie from the get-go. Mom says I was the same way. I suppose some things never change. Cream was whipped in a chilled bowl and plopped atop the apple cranberry pie. Books were read, trains were pushed, lego towers built. 

In most ways, it was a typical meal at Mima and Papa's house. A little more fancy, perhaps. But what makes it special is the attitude we bring to it and how we remember it. And I was ever so thankful to be right there, among the family I love, on a stunning autumn evening.