As I mentioned before, we do Labor Day big in my family. Every year it’s different, but for the past 15 years, we’ve always done something.

It’s a big deal, because my parents had four kids, and we have given them 11 grandchildren, so get-togethers, for us, are chaos and noise and fun and kind of hard to organize. It’s really hard for us to all make it to the same Christmas and Thanksgiving shindigs, when you factor in all of us and all of our in-laws. But who makes a huge holiday out of Labor Day? Just us! It’s a given that we’ll be busy that weekend, so we generally don’t plan anything else.

Anyway. So this year, we celebrated two September birthdays at the same time, my niece (who’ll be two at the end of the month), and my nephew (who’ll be three next week). We went to a park, rode bikes, played in the playground and volleyball court, and ate lots of pizza, cake and ice cream.

Here are some of my favorite pictures, of my family of six, from this past weekend.

Linking up with Natalie and Jessica for Essence of Now.