Pancake Breakfast
We love a good Saturday morning pancake breakfast. Sometimes I get “help” cooking breakfast.
Sometimes I get “help” taking pictures.
I always get lots of help sopping up any leftover syrup.
It’s hard to find good help. I consider myself very lucky.
Cleaning Up
Steven has been away, but Grandma came to help us out. Hooray! I have spent the bulk of the last two days cleaning dry wall dust off every single item in the family room.
I had a feeling, when I saw the mess, this would take a long time to clean up.
Sometimes being right is no fun at all.
Holiday Cupcakes
I spent a large part of Thursday baking and icing cupcakes for the wedding. Then I came home and….made a bunch of cupcakes.
What can I say? It was a cupcake kind of weekend.
The cupcakes I made at home were for the St. Mary’s Boutique. It’s a Christmas craft sale, so I went with the theme.
Here is Rudolph
and the holly wreath.
They were pretty easy. I used raisins, pretzels, and red gum drops for Ruddy. I used red M&Ms, squished green gum drops and coconut for the holly wreath.
For the record, I have very little self-control when it comes to gum drops.
After Party
Donna and Jim had an informal post wedding party at their house Saturday night.
Given that Erin is an orchestra and band teacher, and Phil plays with the Army band, it should not be a surprise that the evening was filled with music.
Or, in our case, filled with banging on the piano.
Sam brought out his guitar, to the delight of all, and played a few of his own tunes.
David loved it.
Of course, no evening at Donna and Jim’s is complete unless the boys take a ride on Grandma Joyce’s chair lift.
At the very end of the evening we were treated to a very special duet.
Donna got her own guitar and she and Sam played two songs together. It was a fabulous way to end a day full of joy.
PS – When we left, Matthew hugged Sam and said, “I love you,” which just made me melt. Who wouldn’t be a fan of Sam after getting all this attention?
Erin’s Wedding
On Saturday, we attended Erin’s wedding. It was a wonderful day.
Erin made a beautiful bride. They both looked so happy.
Here is the wedding party after the ceremony.
Steven sang with a handful of Fairfax Choral Society members during the ceremony.
Donna and Jim joined the singers as well. Donna is on the far right, Jim is to Steven’s right. I was very impressed they were able to sing in the middle of their daughter’s wedding.
After the wedding, we headed to the Lake Anne Inn for the reception.
This was the cake and cupcake display. The cupcakes looked super cute. After spending most of Thursday baking and icing them, “Team Cupcake” was very excited to see the finished product. We stood around high-fiving each other.
The cupcakes on the cake tiers have purple and orange tropical flowers. The cupcakes on the stands have a palm tree and surfboard on the top cupcake, and star fish and “sand” on the rest.
Before Phil and Erin cut the cake the official cake toppers were put on.
Erin says Phil is her “superman”, and Phil calls Erin “sweet duck.”
They said the cake was delicious.
That’s because Aunt Suzanne is an excellent baker.
There was dancing and merriment,
but we had to get home and rescue Grandpa the Amazing Stand-In Babysitter.
Update in Six Lines
The boys are fine,
The pipes are done,
It’s raining cats and dogs.
And I’m enjoying
Catching up with friends,
Instead of writing blogs.
Favorite Book
Matthew loves to read Richard Scary’s “Cars and Trucks and Things That Go.” It was one of my favorites, too, when I was a kid.
Looking for Gold Bug was one of the best parts. That and the pickle car. I was forever looking for a pickle car when we drove on the highway.
Someone should invent a pickle car.
Ice Cream!
What tastes good when your mouth is sore and blistery?
Ice cream!
Also jello, pudding, ice water, and apple slices with the peel taken off.
Matthew and David have become experts in foods-that-feel-good-in-a-blistery-mouth this week. And so has Mommy.
Nana’s Play Ground
We spent most of last week camped at Nana and Grandpa’s during the day. We couldn’t stay in the house, since there was no water and the plumbers needed to work worrying about a busy-body 4-year-old (don’t we all?). And we couldn’t go very many places because the boys had the hand, foot, and mouth virus.
On Wednesday, we took advantage of the sunny weather and headed to the local park.
Matthew demonstrated how he climbs up the climbing wall.
And then he’d slide down the big slide.
David found his own circuit to run – he’d go up a ladder, across the bridge, up the stairs and down the slide.
When we got tired of running, we went to the pond to feed the geese.
Then we went to feed ourselves, at Chick-fil-A, naturally.
The Ceiling
I came home on Tuesday evening and found this.
You might be tempted to focus on the complete disaster that is the family room (God knows I was) but it’s the nine holes in the ceiling I meant to capture.
Nine.
That’s in addition to the holes across the dining room wall, the one in the family room wall, the one in Matthew’s room, the one in David’s room, and the one in the tile of our bathroom.
I can see daylight through this one.
It goes from the family room into the master bath.
The plumber said that the pipes turned out to be “a bit more complicated” than he thought. I didn’t dare roll my eyes. He was the only guy who could fix it all.
The good news is, the pipes are done, the water works, and the holes are patched. The bad news is, now most of the house looks like the family room picture above. Except with a 1/4 inch layer of dust on every single surface.
It may have been simpler just to move.
