A Perfect Day for a Wedding

Yesterday my seven-year-old daughter and I attended three weddings. These were the only three weddings on our social calendar, and they all fell on the same day. The amazing thing is that we were able to attend all three. We left the house at 10:30 a.m.; when we left the third wedding it was 10 p.m. and we were 100 miles from home.

The first two couples are from church; even though we couldn't convince them that they really didn't want to get married the same day, they were kind enough to space them far enough that several of us attended both. Unfortunately, we had to leave before they cut the cake at the first wedding, so I made up for it by eating a piece of the bride's and the groom's cakes at the second wedding!

Katy and Chase are both homeschool graduates!

Ben planned a surprise honeymoon for Anna. At the reception, she still didn't know their destination, but I squeezed it out of him: Jamaica!

The third wedding was for Joanna and Brett. We've known Joanna for years, and she is also a homeschool graduate. Brett is in construction and built her a new home!

". . .Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God."
~ Ruth 1:16

The Ultimate Blog Party Begins!

The Ultimate Blog Party begins today, hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom. What is a blog party, you ask? It's a great opportunity to meet other bloggers and win prizes! I am a prize host, #10 on the American-only list. I'm giving away Norton Antivirus 2007, so if you're feeling less than secure head over to the prize page and choose it. Check here to find out how to improve your chances of getting the prize you want.

Welcome to my little corner of the blogosphere. I'm a SAHM of eight kids, with a love for blogging, creating things on my computer, hanging out with the best church family ever, and watching whatever my kids are doing at the time. Soccer moms get their own title, but we're not into soccer, so I guess I'm a baseball/basketball/chorus sort of mom.

I just got this great idea from the Preacher's Wife: to encourage de-lurking, I'll offer a prize from a random drawing from comments left this week. I would tell you what the prize is, but that would imply that I'd had time to put some heavy thought into it, which unfortunately isn't the case... I promise, "whatever it is, it's a nice one!"

UPDATE: I HAVE A PRIZE!

Last weekend I bought the New York City Ballet Complete Workout, which enables me to be beaten up one side and down the other--all in the privacy of my own home!--by the world-renowned NYC Ballet. In the midst of yesterday's fiasco workout, I almost decided that those videos would be a perfect prize. On second thought, I've decided I should stick with it for more than a week before giving it away, so here is the actual prize, selected by my 10-year-old daughter:

This is a recipe organizer with 100 journal pages and 4 divider tabs, perfect for saving and organizing your favorite recipes. I don't know about you, but I've found some fabulous recipes on blogs.

Here are a few of my favorite and/or most-read posts:

The Greatest Job in the World
Moments in motherhood

Modesty Doesn't Become Him
Hubby Dearest, that is

Introducing Aunt Mayme
A tribute to a very special relative

Basic Truths About 24's Jack Bauer
This is copied--not something I wrote--but I could read it all day long and laugh every time.

Strikethrough Text in Blogger
This one gets lots of hits, so I guess it's kind of a blogger public service announcement.

My lucky day!

A few months ago I found out that Harry was coming to town and that tickets were going on sale that weekend. My husband works with a guy with ticket connections, so I asked him to please beg for some tickets, especially since the concert is so close to our birthdays (mine and my husband's are five days apart). You may ask why I didn't just buy them right away for myself, and I would tell you that mothers of eight are extremely frugal and don't go around buying concert tickets, especially when they discover that ticket prices have increased since the early 80's.

Three months have gone by, and no tickets. My husband's friend assured us that there is always a block of about 60 really good seats which are reserved for the performer's use, and that any unused tickets are released at the last minute. I have bookmarked the ticketmaster page for this concert and check it daily, crossing my fingers and saying a little prayer that two of those golden tickets would be ours.

Well, today is my lucky day! While sitting here in the parking lot during my kids' chorus classes, "borrowing" the unsecured wireless signal from the local vet hospital, I made my daily check and lo and behold THERE WERE MY TICKETS--in the orchestra section (the best seats) no less! We are now the proud owners of two tickets to hear one of my favorite singers ever and to top it all off, the concert is next week! WOO HOO!

The Birthday Tea, Part 2

Here is the follow-up to Part 1.

One of the first things we did was decorate cookies. We used sugar cookies and gingerbread men, and decorated them with icing, sprinkles, and colored sugar. It was messy but fun!

All of the little girls had such a good time at the tea! You could tell they felt very grown up with their cups and saucers, eating their little finger sandwiches - so sweet! Some dressed up, but brought play clothes, too.

Look at this cute little "tea for one" set: it has the cup on bottom and the teapot on top.

We put ten candles in the cake, and after they were blown out we put in seven and did it again!

After the eating, cake, and presents, everyone went outside to play in the beautiful 70 degree weather. Who could have guessed we would have that for our December party? We have a large Little Tykes playset beside the house, which we were amazed to see in the front yard. Apparently it took four little girls to push it around the house. [I need to go move it before the homeowners' association Nazis drive through the neighborhood this week. Apparently children playing happily on play equipment in their front yards is detrimental to property values - at least in our neighborhood. {meow} ]

I was greatly assisted by the other moms; I expected no less from such a fine group of friends. I think the party was a big success. The most important thing to me was not disappointing my girls, and they had a wonderful time. Thanks for sharing this big event with us!

The Birthday Tea, Part 1

Saturday was the big day - the birthday tea! My two oldest daughters celebrated their 10th and 7th birthdays last week. I appreciate all of the encouragement and suggestions you gave and now I want to share the results, which I will divide into two posts: party prep and the party itself. Now for the preparation phase:

I stayed up late the two nights before the party baking. I wanted to make goody bags for the guests, but I needed to fill them with the fruits of my labors rather than my pocketbook. I baked batches of snickerdoodles, gingerbread men, and sugar cookies, as well as shortbread.

We bought little white sacks (to look like tea bags) for goody bags, which my kids decorated with teapots which were printed on colored paper and then cut out and glued on the sacks. I found colored markers which were shaped like letter stamps on the ends, and the kids used them to stamp "Tea Time." I wasn't sure all of the girls would drink real, hot tea, so we served Russian Tea and lemonade. We printed cards with the Russian Tea recipe and included them, and an individual bag of fruit-flavored tea, too.

We turned our dining room table sideways and were able to fit two tables in the dining room, which worked out just perfectly!

Last but not least: the cake! Those of you who are experienced cake-decorators might not be impressed with my efforts, but this was my attempt at a teapot-shaped cake. I baked two cakes in my big Pampered Chef glass measuring bowl and stacked them on top of each other, iced in the middle. In the fabric and crafts section at Wal-Mart, I found a foam heart. Unfortunately there wasn't pink, so the red had to do. I was having trouble cutting it in two, so my husband had to do it with a utility knife! One half is on the left, as the handle; the other on the right, as the spout. I stuck toothpicks in the ends to attach it to the cake. I'll give my husband credit: he was having trouble understanding how I wanted him to carve the spout, so I said, "Just make it jaunty!" I think he did a fine job.

I couldn't have pulled this off without the assistance of my ever-helpful retired neighbor, Miss Ann, a true Southern lady. She offered her assistance from the beginning, and arrived on our doorstep that morning with beautiful platters of cream cheese and pineapple finger sandwiches, and small wedges of banana bread. While I raced to Wal-Mart for last-minute supplies, she helped my kids bring over so many cups and saucers that I never even got out my own.

Next will be Part 2: The Party!

The Dinner Party!

Last Friday night I tried the dinner party/recipe swap idea I'd gotten from BooMama with a few ladies from church; there were five of us in attendance. My nine-year-old daughter did a lovely job setting the table. She had been waiting all week for the opportunity. When she finished, she must have lit every candle in the house. Then my husband loaded up the kids for a night at CiCi's and a trip through Wal-Mart. What more could a kid want? Thank you, honey, for giving me some big-girl time!

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures earlier, when my aunt was here, too.

Having a small crowd was great for conversational purposes! Highlights included jury duty stories and pronunciation oddities (not unusual, considering Melissa and Lynne both have backgrounds in speech therapy). Did you know that people from Texas, Georgia, and Arkansas will all pronounce Ponce de Leon differently? And that this is actually relevant since it is the name of a major street in downtown Atlanta? And that people from Arkansas will think that native Georgians (this includes news anchors and traffic reporters) sound really stupid odd when they pronounce it? But that people from Arkansas who feel superior to people from Georgia when pronouncing "Ponce de Leon" may themselves feel somewhat foolish when they hear someone from Texas pronounce it? Or that people from Texas have a really strange very unique pronunciation for the words Colorado and Nevada (or maybe that's just Lynne)? Or that Tina's husband pronounces "loin" (as in pork loin) "low-in"? And that I just have to hear him say it with my own two ears?

Or that Tina is highly photogenic?

And did I mention the food? Or the fact that I never start sentences with conjunctions but seem to be making a huge exception for this post? The food was OUT.OF.THIS.WORLD, topped off by my fudge truffle cheesecake and Melissa's mystery brownies, whose ingredients were not divulged until after they'd been tasted. (Curious, aren't you?)

Although it took me out of my usual comfort zone entertaining-wise (I'm much more casual - in over twenty-one years of marriage I had NEVER used my good china), this is an idea which I highly recommend. You can read the synopsis on BooMama's blog. The only thing we did differently is that the recipes are being emailed to me so that I can compile them into one document and send them to everyone, including ladies who were unable to attend but want to share in the recipe exchange. It will be nice to have them all in one place and be able to print extra copies as needed.

Thanks, sweet sisters, for the food and the fellowship!

with a little help from my kids

I'm really excited about tomorrow night. With some of my sweet church sisters as my guests, I'm trying the dinner party/recipe exchange idea that I read about at BooMama's. If it goes well, I'd like to try it later with the ladies in my neighborhood and in my homeschool group, too. It's a more formal style than we usually entertain, but like The Little Engine that Could, I keep saying, "I think I can, I think I can!" Unfortunately, my kids don't seem to share my optimism.

After the etiquette classes my 9- and 6-year-old daughters and 11-year-old son took in our homeschool co-op before their recent cotillion, I think they are capable of setting the table for dinner at the White House. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way they began to examine yours truly and decided I was lacking in this department. It all began the week when their homework was to set the table before dinner each night. They were obviously quite disappointed when they realized that not only would we not need a very formal place setting or a basic formal place setting, but often we didn't even use all of the utensils for a simple place setting. I'm just a practical person; we generate enough dirty laundry and dishes around here already without having to clean items we won't actually use, and four of the nine people at our table are age six and under.

This week, my oldest daughter has been leaving her etiquette notebook on my desk, "In case I need to study." She has also told me that she plans to set the table for Friday night. It's actually very sweet, except for the (unintentional) condescension of it. . .{sigh}. I know my limitations, one of which is that by not drinking coffee I don't know how to make it. Hopefully I have solved this problem by asking a friend who is an amazing cook (she catered her own wedding and has a recipe in last year's Southern Living cookbook!) to bring coffee (last time she even brought her own grinder and pot). Fortunately, I plan to serve my fudge truffle cheesecake, which should cover a multitude of sins.

The Highlight of the Social Season!

Since September, the children in grades 1-8 in our homeschool co-op have been studying human anatomy, ballroom dance, etiquette, and sign language. With the exception of anatomy, these classes have been geared to culminate in a cotillion, which was held last Thursday morning. Chairs were arranged beyond the dance area for invited guests. My mother-in-law, our retired neighbors, and my husband were able to attend. I can say, without a doubt, that this was one of the highlights of our thirteen years of homeschooling.

The mothers were determined that the kids get the full experience, including a six-course meal. We didn't want to risk breaking our good china in transport, so eventually we decided to rent china, crystal, linens, and silverware, which came in special carrying cases. Amazingly, we only had one broken water goblet and one missing napkin.

This turned out to be a very emotional experience for the mothers! One mom said she felt like her son was getting married. I cried when the 4th-8th grade kids performed Nicol Sponberg's "Resurrection" in sign-language; it was very moving.

The mothers dressed in black pants with white shirts and served the meal. I mentally chanted "serve from the left, clear from the right" until I felt like I could get a job at a local restaurant. I have a new respect for everything a server's job entails. Refilling glasses and clearing plates sure keeps you on your toes!

Although Clayton wasn't old enought to participate in the cotillion itself, he was one of the children in the pre-K/kindergarten class who performed in sign-language during the program.

I am going to publish a series of posts for each of my children who participated.

Flag Retirement

Yesterday, Christian, Sabra, and Chloe participated in a flag retirement ceremony for Flag Day. The kids lined up and were given old flags to carry (I think most were from military graves). They got to do some fancy footwork, with the veterans barking out military style marching orders.
When they reached the front of the line, they handed their flag to a veteran, who unfolded it and burned it. Bryan and I were actually getting a little nervous because of the close proximity of the flamable material to the metal drum where the flags were being burned!
It was a really neat thing for the kids to do, and opened an opportunity to discuss the proper care and handling of the American flag.