All In A Day's Play

 What a great weekend!  I wish I could say that I sat down a lot, but well, yes I guess I can!  There was a lot of sitting.  I'll explain later.

Maddy and Matthew arrived in time for super secret steak night on Friday.  We try to live unpredictably...  And they wouldn't be here on Saturday night.

Since Leon wasn't here yet and Meri had already made plans to go to the local theater to see The Greatest Showman for the 75th time, Maddy and Matthew had to hang with just us two and Grandma for dinner.  BUT we had fun!  We brought down Ryan's game system and got the Jackbox game up and running.  When Meri came home, she played a bit with us too, then those three played board games until they couldn't keep their eyes open anymore.  

The next morning, I took the three Ms and Grandma to the pub where Ryan was working and got the full British breakfast.  I was actually able to finish mine this time!  Well, just barely.  It's huge.

 

Meri had to leave right after and catch the bus from school for the Jazz band competition.  Robb missed it entirely because he was picking up Leon.  We all enjoyed a leisurely morning and these three got reacquainted and they gave him an early birthday present. 

Then since the Jazz band competition made those two a couple hours closer to home, Robb drove their car and they rode with me and Leon in my mini-van.  That way they could leave for home from there.  Fun conversations ensued.  Poor Robb, he missed it all!  Although his was probably the most relaxing drive...  It had started snowing just before we left and the roads were terrible.  It took two hours to get there instead of just the 1.5 that we'd estimated.

Still got to the campus early enough tho for a quick sandwich lunch in the hall.  This is the photo I sent Meri to let her know we had arrived.

The band sounded great!  Unbeknownst to any of us or them, the writer of two of the songs they performed was sitting back with the judges.  Wow... 

 

and he was impressed with their interpretation of his music!   

The ballad knocked Leon out.  Which was just as well.  He'd heard these songs many times before and was really squirmy until he fell asleep.

 

 We got first place!!  The band director was very pleased.  I'm so glad for them!

 While we waited for the clinic critique to get done, these two got crazy...  I was trying to get a picture of them peeking out from around the post, but my camera was too slow...  or they were too fast.  Not sure which.

We waited.  and we waited...  It was a long clinic!

 We saw Ryan's girlfriend, Jen's mom and sister there.  

Leon said, "Hey - that girl looks just like Jen only Jen would never have a white purse..."  

And her sister looks exactly like a younger version.  Wow!

 But all the hard work and advice given paid off.  These guys were #1!

Afterwards, before we could let Maddy and Matthew go, we celebrated Leon's birthday at a bounce place Robb found online. 

 What a fantastic place!!!  It was HUGE!  And because SOMEONE learned a lesson from the old Discovery Zone places, this business insisted on selling you "special" socks to bounce in.  Discovery Zone's tunnels started smelling like dirty socks...  But this place smelled great!

  

So much to do!  Robb and I mostly sat on a bench and I filled out Leon's birthday card invitations.  AND we took tons of pics.

You can see in this one, that not even a split second later, he was on the ground.

 

There was an obstacle course that Matthew helped Leon climb through and then he fell and hit his knee on his face.  LOTS of employees around with instant ice packs for the kids.  PERFECT.

 

So much for little kids to do...

 

And the older kids too...

 

After we wore them all out, we went to a Perkins and got the worst service of our lives...  Well, if you DON'T count that one date Robb and I went on 25 years ago...  And I'm not.  It took almost 40 minutes for my milk shake to arrive and everyone else was done with their drinks way before that.  And then even longer for our food.

But I'm not complaining... much.  It gave us more time to visit with Maddy and Matthew before they took off for home.

I'll save my Sunday adventures for tomorrow.  I've got lots to do.  I hope you had a great weekend!

Birthday-tide weekends

Friday was Meri's for REALs birthday.  and she was going to be gone ALL day until late.  Darn school and work activities...

I wanted to try out a new recipe I'd found, so on Friday night I made it.  It's pizza made with a cauliflower crust.

I had a bunch of cauliflower that I was afraid might be going bad soon, so I threw it all in the oven with a foil lid for an hour.  Mashed it up and added a few things.

1/4 cup grated Parmesan

1/2 cup grated Mozzerella that I made the other day, but just use the stuff from the store...

1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning.  I couldn't find any, so I used oregano.

1/4 teaspoon salt.

1 large egg

mix all together and then spread out on parchment paper to look like a pizza, bake at 400 degrees.

Top with whatever you want.

I made a TEENY piece with hamburger for Robb so he could try it.  

He had his own pizza with a pizza dough crust.  Well, with a corner of it for Meri if she didn't like the cauliflower.  

The rest of the pepperoni/cauliflower pizza was for Meri and me.

She got one slice and I ate up the rest...  It wasn't very big.  REALLY!

I might do the crust thinner next time.

Robb ran some food over to her at her job so she could get something to eat.  It was a long day for her.

On Saturday, after a belated Christmas program practice with the Sunday school kids, Meri and I stopped at JoAnns and picked up fabric for her Sweetheart dress.  Then I sewed sewed sewed all the rest of the live long day, taking a break for supper.  Her dress is done except for a zipper and a hem.

I even got two more sample bodices made for Maddy on Saturday!  I'm not sure about one thing, so we're scheduling a fitting for next week some time.  Ok, two things.

On Sunday, I stopped by the 4H meeting where Meri showed up with friends who were helping her celebrate her birthday.  They met for a total of 2 minutes, then the kids went ice skating.  

There were the kids who were show offs in the middle of the rink.  

Kids using walkers.  

And then of course, the side clingers... 

Meri isn't too bad and only fell once.  One of her friends got up enough courage to actually let go of the sides but then clung to another friend for the rest of it. 

Not sure if that counts.

Picked up a few things for the evening and headed home to prepare for a belated birthday dinner bash for Meri.  Super Secret Steak night with ice cream cake for dessert since she's a huge cake hater.

Leon helped her blow out the candles.  

Since she'd already opened all her presents at the fake birthday and on Friday, she was surprised to find that Jen had brought her one to open for this!

The Sparkling Cider makes her look like a boozer...  BUT she's not.  She just loves the stuff.  Sparkling cider I mean!

And now the birthday-tide lasts until late February for her...  

I wonder what she's invoke her Birthday-tide privileges on...?...

hmmm...

He's a Handful...

I went to Leon's preschool yesterday to celebrate his birthday with them.  Yep - we drag out our birthdays!  He'll be five by the time we stop from this one!

So anyway, I used to envision that he might misbehave and not obey or listen to us, but he's an angel for his teachers.  That little notion has flown out the window.

I think his teacher wants to retire.  Just a side note, his daddy's kindergarten teacher retired the summer after Ryan completed kindergarten.  Coincidence??  

There will be more retirees coming right up.

It was a challenge to get him to put on his snow pants but FINALLY he was ready.

I showed him how to pump his legs and get the swing really going.  

But then he ran off and found the binoculars instead.

Pitched that and opted for a Frisbee.  So I showed him how to throw it.  

Apparently they've been known to knock you down.

When we finally got home, he tore into all the birthday presents that had been waiting patiently for him to come back home to.  He got an awesome robot thing from one of Robb's cousins and just this morning found that he'd worn the batteries down completely in it.  I'm going to have to get a second mortgage to keep this thing in batteries...

A handful of dead batteries...   a handful of rambunctious boy...  

I'll take the boy.

Not What You'd Expect!

Guess who did some sewing this weekend??!  ME!!!  I made a t-shirt and half of a long sleeved t-shirt.  They're based on one of my favorite comfy oversized tops.  I made the pattern by using my existing top and drawing out the shape of it on the back of some wrapping paper that has the cutting guides.  I'll show you both of them when I get them done.  Hopefully I won't look terrible!!!  I wore one of them yesterday.

I also sorted through a lot of my fabric stash over the weekend and am determined to make my "stash" office more presentable and functional.  

Anyway, back to family things.  We had our nieces over on Saturday to help celebrate Ryan's actual birthday dinner with us.  Since Ryan is NOT into cake this year or sweets of any kind (he has sensitive teeth, he's discovered), we had to be creative.  AND I had an edible image ready to drop on his cake...

So with all the prep work done prior thanks for Maddy, Meri and I whipped this together about 30 minutes before eating and presented his cake first.  Hungry?

Maybe more now??

Or now??

This is how it's put together.  Then COVERED with sour cream for the frosting.

I cut it with an electric knife, because I didn't want to squish all the innards out while cutting into it.  A day later, it's easier with just a sharp knife.

 

He LOVED it!  We also had steak, sweet corn on the cob and other sides, but after that and then one slice of this, I was so stuffed, I ached... for several hours.  Then more of the taco cake for supper.

I plan on more for lunch today and to get the big covered tray out of my fridge so we can fit the ketchup back in...

I hope you had a great weekend!

Surprisingly Random!

It's going to be a mad scramble of day, so I thought I'd share some mad scrambles from my brain...

Woke up at 12:30am to put the puppy out.  It's at times like that, if you're a programmer, that suddenly you realize what you did wrong with the coding you did the day before.  Luckily it's not in production yet, so I can fix it this morning.

Besides that, I've got a BIG client going live next week and it has to be perfect.  So I'm going to be analyzing all their data today to make sure all is well.

On the home front, Ryan's lesser birthday dinner last night went well.  He had a friend over that has called me Mom for several years now.  We got in a debate over the best/worst season of The Walking Dead so far.

I almost grounded him.

The girls and I have an awesome idea for Ryan's official birthday celebration tomorrow for lunch.  Since Ryan is NOT into sweets and doesn't want a cake, ice cream cake OR cheesecake even, we came up with a new idea to use the edible image AND keep with his wishes.  He doesn't know about the edible image yet...  

I'll show you pictures on Monday.  But remember THIS famous birthday cake we make one year for my bestie's husband??  It's along the same lines.  Let's just say... Ryan will be surprised...

 Gotta run!  Have an awesome weekend!  I hope to swing around and visit you all later today if my eyes aren't glazed over.

Birthday Tide At Last!!!

Well, Leon is officially 1 year old.  With all the pomp and balloons that need to accompany such an event...

On Friday night, we had a special family birthday party for him.  With a little cake made just for him.  This was about all he ate before he'd had enough and was almost fell asleep in his highchair.

During his actual party, he wore his super hero cape and was very gracious about sharing his toys with his cousins. 

He and Daddy opened presents together.

And I love this!  I put my camera on the sports action setting so I might be able to catch Leon trying to blow out the candle... But he saw the camera was on so I caught just Mom and Dad blowing it out.  He's a deer in the headlights with the camera!

My mother-in-law's dog was a BIG hit with the younger set.  And ALMOST got dognapped by the one on the right... 

It was a good birthday!  I only hope that we don't need 101 cupcakes for next years party too!  (We gave away a LOT the next day!)  

Maybe it will be more low-key... 

But I doubt it...

Babies, Birthdays and Tiaras...

They just seem to go together!

My birthday was yesterday.  I celebrated 32... again... 

*It's my birthday-tide and I can lie if I want to...*

And at my age, I now get to be a Princess!  

Ignore the open cabinets.  It's my birthday-tide and I don't have to shut it.

Leon sat next to me hamming it up for my Ipod camera, since my camera batteries were dead. 

Tiffany took a TON of pictures trying to get his first teeth photo.  No good...  This is as close as we got.

Later on that evening, I took Leon for a walk in his stroller which he got sick of half way around the usual loop.  I had to carry him the rest of the way back or the neighbors would think I was kicking the stroller or pinching him...

Also later on that evening, Ryan got a couple more gifts of their own his and her and his lawn chairs.  The only one to try out his was Leon.  The parent ones were NOT Hippo chairs...  He seems to like it!

Ignore the stuff on the couch.  It's my birthday-tide and I don't have to pick it up!

I enjoyed watching the family do dishes as I sat with my crown, munching on some birthday candy...

This Birthday-Tide stuff is pretty sweet...