Monday April 23, 2012

I’ve missed this little spot! I’ve hardly even clicked on my xanga home page at all this week and when I do I stare at it incapacitated by the backlog of subscriptions I want to read and the simultaneous urge to write. Since sitting around feeling overwhelmed never got anyone anywhere, I am powering through in divide and conquer mode. Write today. Read and catch up tomorrow (I hope!).   I do have such huge problems in my life to deal with, don’t I?

Where have I been? I don’t know. Do you ever feel really weird when someone asks you what you’ve been up to and you know you’ve been busy but you can’t at all remember what in the world has made you feel that way? Both hands raised. It’s a million little things instead of one big thing and somehow they all roll up into one big ball of vague “umm, I can’t remember.”

But I WANT to remember. Not the work part …. I’d be just fine with NOT remembering how often I’ve vacuumed the house, painted something, or washed off the front porch hoping today would be the day the realtor calls. But the other parts? They’re worth remembering! So here’s a tiny recap of some of the fun things that have been happening in March and April before they go the way of oblivion in my mind.

A birthday brunch celebrating my Mother In Law. We should have started this a long time ago so we could call it an annual tradition. If we’re in Virginia next year, I hope we get to do this again.  We are overwhelmingly a family of boy power so it’s always fun to get together with just the girls and some estrogen oriented food and conversation.












(Emily was home taking care of a puppy and I forgot to get a picture of her when she got here, bummer!)

Dinner with Trell and Cynthia. I feel so crazy, incredibly blessed to have them only an hour away again. I only moved an hour from home when I got married, but almost all my besties moved all over the place and I rarely get to see them. But now Cynthia is relatively close by again and better yet, our husbands like hanging out together. A lot. And the boys? Well, never mind that there are no play mates. Adam *almost* picked going to Trell and Cynthia’s over going to a slumber party with his friends. You see, Trell is one of those people who works near magic with a grill and Adam is a foodie.

Meeting two blogger friends in two weeks time. Pictures or not, I love being able to put a real person to a blog face!  I hope we get to meet again sometime, Jessica and Luci!

My birthday partieS. Talk about celebrated! Jeannine took me out for lunch, and as always, we way overstayed our time. We can never get done talking! And FINALLY I got to introduce her to the fabulousness that is tomato basil soup at Cafe Europa!

 







That night we delivered a frig to my mom and dad’s house and celebrated all over again. I love, love, LOVE that my birthday happens during the Spring season and this year was extra fantabulous because it was warm so much earlier than normal. (Never mind that it’s 55 degrees and rainy today … aka freezing cold in my dictionary).  There is just nothing like food at mom’s house.  Ever.








And yet a third celebration Saturday night when David completely outdid himself. He’d told me he was taking care of dinner and I thought, “cool.” Well, he didn’t just take care of dinner. He grilled a Greek pizza (and yes, made the crust from scratch), fixed a Greek salad, and made key lime pie. I loved it! But the celebration just went on and on. I was supposed to kill time until he was done with dishes. No problem there. The boys and I read stories and before I knew it, he was finished and had the boys come help deliver his present. Next thing I knew, two giddy boys were leading me upstairs where I found my favorite Bath and Body Works spa products from the boys so I could take a long, hot bath in candlelight with music while he put the boys to bed. And as though that weren’t enough, I got a full thirty minute massage afterward. I’ve been telling David for years he missed his calling as a masseuse.







A fun family day when Adam had a short Spring Break. He always thinks he misses out on all the fun because of school. The weather wasn’t as awesome as we’d hoped those two days, but we still managed to play outside. At least it wasn’t raining. I can hardly wait to do this again sometime after school is out!



(Peter was nonplussed with my decor.  He wouldn’t take a drink until the paper was OFF his cup and he didn’t want a “pickle” on it either.  I love two year olds!)


















A birthday party for Adam. I love having an eight year old! We don’t do a big party every year, but since we are (hopefully) moving and won’t be close to family and friends, we decided this year is a party year. We asked him if he wanted to do friends or cousins and he chose friends. He is one of three boys in second grade and there are no boys in third grade which means they are the only three in the classroom. They are like the three musketeers! By the way, never use S’mores frosting to decorate because it WILL run, even if you put it in the frig. Last year the writing on Adam’s cake ran horribly by the time I got it to school. I thought it was because it was warm in the car. This year I didn’t like the brown color I’d mixed (I didn’t have brown coloring) so I added a little s’mores frosting to help ease the ugly color and by the time we ate, it was garishly running down the sides of the cake. So just to clarify, I wasn’t trying for anything ghoulish.





(Thanks to Christy for the amazing Pinterest link when I told her I wanted to do a camping theme but didn’t know what to do for the cake!)















My mom made the getting ready day SOOOOO much more fun by coming to help.  I shot a wedding in Va beach Saturday and we didn’t get home until 11 Sunday night.  Monday I couldn’t crash because it was Adam’s birthday which meant snack at school, I had to unload the van, clean up the weekend mess, download pictures, and get the van clean so David could take it to the Allegany Board meeting because it was his turn to drive.  He didn’t get home until 2:30 that night.  We weren’t going to do the party until the weekend so I thought I had all week to work on things as I could, but suddenly the weather prediction went cold and rainy so I knew if I wanted to be outside, we had to do it Tuesday night.  I knew I had all day to get ready for the party, but it was so much easier and more fun and way less stressful to have help.   Thanks, Mom!  Oh, and that’s her lovely font on the cups!






(Liam’s first s’more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I found gluten free graham crackers at Martins.  This is so crazy exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I just melt inside when he finally gets to have something special that the rest of think is normal shnormal!  And yes, I know not having s’mores isn’t exactly deprivation when so much of the world would be happy for a bigger bowl of rice.  But when he lives in the middle of so much party that he can’t experience, I just want to jump up and down when he finally gets to experience it.  You bet I cheated and let him have chocolate.)

(See what I said?)










(How ceeeute is this note from Cole??)





I LOVE yard parties and cannot wait to have more of them this summer with or without birthdays!

Oh, and nothing like pictures to show you how obsessed you are with something. Apparently in the last four weeks I have now served subs or ham and cheese sandwiches twice when my friend, Tury, was here, during our Spring Break family day, when Darius and Ro moved, and at Adam’s birthday party. Does anyone sense a pattern here? It’s called, “I am ACHING for summer and picnics and swimming and eating outside.” Hey, at least it wasn’t hot dogs. If you don’t like subs, you may want to stay clear of our house.


And of course, a wedding in Virginia beach could only get one thousand times better if your amazing friends sing at the wedding and offer to split a beach house with you …. and the weather on Sunday is somewhere around 80 degrees and sunny!  It was such an incredibly refreshing and rejuvenating weekend.  Jonathan and Heather are one of those awesome “couple friends.”  You know the kind both of you just love being with and you’re not saying, “we’re hanging out with her friends or his friends.”  I love that we have so much fun with them, that conversation is so easy and restful and so interspersed with laughter.  I love that our children love to play together and hardly ever fight.  And I love that they are passionate about knowing Jesus and have inspired us so much to pursue God hard.  I think this should happen after every wedding …. so if you hire me to take pictures, please hire them to sing!  Jonathan’s solo at the wedding was stellar, just FYI.















Whose crazy kids get in the water in APRIL?  And what kind of crazy mom lets them???  Their faces are hysterical.  Look at the terror on their faces as the water hits them.  It was numbingly cold.  Yet they turned around and went in for more. 



Adam and Damaris pretended to be kings.  Adam told me I should try sitting up there.  “It makes you feel really rich.”  Somehow I doubted a stack of plastic chairs would have that ability, but I didn’t try it so I guess it’s kind of his word against mine.







 





Do you ever stop to think about how crazy rich and blessed our lives are??? There are so many little things. The other day I drove past road construction on my way to town and I realized all over again how nice our roads are. We drive past beautiful architecture, gorgeous flowering trees, well-maintained yards and plazas …. so much beauty. I loved Jamaica, but coming home made me realize how very much I appreciate order and beauty. But the best part is people!! I was backing up our personal pictures from the last two years and just remembering again how many, many friends we have. From all over the nation and world, really. Friends who call and talk for an hour. Friends who call and say, “Can I come over?”. Friends who send sweet little packages in the mail. Friends who make time for a lunch date. Friends who allow us into their lives and enter into ours.

If I could, I’d declare today a national friendship day in honor of all the amazing people in our lives!  And now I’m off to pick up another online friend at the airport!

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