WIWS: Pentecost

J Tho and J Babe showing off their spring pastels.

I am wearing a dress that is approximately 10 years old.  I bought it at my beloved Casual Corner, that I miss to this day.  When organizational people tell you to get rid of everything in the closet that you haven't worn in a year, they are not referring to very classic dresses that will never go out of style.

Susan joined us with a smile today.  She is wearing an Old Navy skirt, approximately 5 years old, a blouse from Von Maur, a belt from Nordstrom juniors, leopard print flats from Famous Footwear, and the scarf my mom gave to Lucy for Christmas.

This happened today at church.  Deacon Bill was giving a homily about the Holy Spirit when a robin flew in the open side doors.   The robin swooped around for a while, over everyone's heads.  Deacon Bill mentioned some hope that it would not leave any calling cards, when it came to rest directly in front of the tabernacle.  

Right smack dab in front of the tabernacle, facing it.  The congregation applauded.  So much joy!  The robin stayed there for several minutes, and then flew back out the door.  Father said it just wanted to do some adoration.

Yes, I did whip out my phone and snapped this pic in the middle of Mass.  I was thinking of how you would want to see it too!

Linking up with Fine Linen and Purple for What I Wore on Sunday.

7QT-Birthday Party Recap

1.

The Chef and I turned the big four oh this month, and were feted with the fiesta of our dreams.

2.

My friends are party planners extraordinaire.   Check out the decorations.  

3.  Check out the food!

Well, you can't see the food because the party goers are blocking the buffet.  It was an incredible spread, taco bar, chicken, beef, or carnitas, enchiladas, and all the trimmings.

Here's the dessert table.  There's a plate of chocolate chip cookies up there....THAT HAVE OREOS STUFFED INSIDE OF THEM!  There are chocolate brownies and margarita cupcakes, and a caramel coffee cake thingy that smelled muy delicioso, but I could not eat anymore.

4.  The Birthday Cake!

The host, dear friend of ours and pastor of the parish that let us party in the Youth Rooms, helped me cut the cake.

Yes, those are Holy Santos candles.  They were everywhere.  I got to bring them home, so I can recreate this bathtub scene if there ever is a live tweet of Napoleon Dynamite.

5.  The Music:  a DJ and a Band?!?!

My fun-loving brother-in-law, Patrick, spun all of Joan Baez's and Menudo's greatest hits until this happened.

It's not every birthday party that has a band show up and play a set of live original and cover music.  

Yes, The Great Whiskey Project was there.  They have recently recorded their first album.  You can check out a single they've just released here.  Below, you can watch/listen to their cover of Coldplay's Yellow as if Johnny Cash were covering it.  Brilliant.  

The lead singer is my extremely talented brother-in-law, Charley.  Other band members include family, friends, friends of the family, and family friends.  

I'm their number one fan.  Officially.  

Well, maybe not officially, but it should be official.  I mean, they crashed my birthday party.  If that's not official No. 1 Fan Sanctioning, then I guess I don't really know what the words "official"  or "sanctioning"  or "paradoxical" mean.

6.  The Booze!  I mean The Beverages!

That's my friend and party planner/baker/decorator/barkeep, Andrea.  And in front of her there are two vats.  One is full of margaritas and the other is full of sangria.  Not shown, in front of this table, are FIVE coolers filled with beer, water bottles, soda, beer, and more beer.  Andrea made sure that the "pretty cooler" was always front and center.

7.  More Friends

Here's me and my friend/partyplanner/decorator/photographer, Cheryl, and my friend Sara (with newborn), all doing the arm thing that Cheryl taught me.  Cheryl took all of the pictures except this one.

This is Kris and Carisa, also my besties, and party planners/decorators/cleaneruppers etc.  I know I missed out on lots of fun party planning meetings with these ladies.  We're going to have to have another party so I can help plan it too.

The guy in the middle, Tom aka Uncle Julio, was a little late, because he was still growing out the mustache he started in the am.

Those guys didn't know about the arm pose, but I'm getting the word out.

I had family there too!  Woot!  My lovely sister, Anne of Bazin Chronicles and her sweet husband Mark, came all the way from Houston, Texas to be with me at my birthday party.  I was terrifically surprised and got to spend Mother's Day weekend with them as well.  I am thrilled and blessed that they came.

Soon to be Deacon Dave, working the camera like a Versace runway model, minus the murse.

Julio and Adolf...or Chaplin, you be the judge.

Cheryl took lots more photos of the wonderful people who suffer us fools as friends.  So if you were there, and not pictured here, it's because I wasn't sure how you felt about having your image exploited on the internet.  And also because I've been working on this post for a long time and I'm hungry.

Oh Gosh, It Was FUN!  I can't stop saying "Thank You!" and thinking about how blessed we are in our families and friends.  

Best.party.ever.

Linking up with Jen on this post-party Friday.

7 QT: Books and Movies, Movies and Books

1.

A Big Round of Applause to Cari Donaldson for taking pity on my Battle of the Books team and creating this fab design.

Turns out there is an award for Best T-Shirt Design, so if my team wins, we will be sure to thank her in our acceptance speech.

2.

Speaking of Battle of the Books, I am meeting with my team today.  I am rewarding them for correct answers with Swedish Fish (because Whales Eat Fish) and Lorna Doone Shortbread Cookies, because that is what Tucker Mouse is nibbling in the beginning of The Cricket in Times Square, also because they are scrumptious.

3.  Another book from our list of twenty is Reaching for the Moon by Buzz Aldrin.  Buzz was the second man to set foot on the moon.  Reaching for the Moon is a great non-fiction picture book for older readers.

 

We recently watched The Right Stuff, about the first seven astronauts in the space program.  It's a fine family movie if you fast forward the sperm-collection scene and the trampy-ladies-in-the bar scene.

Never mind.  Just watch Apollo 13 instead.  Apollo 13 is shorter and better done anyway.

4.  Now our family is on a big baseball themed movie kick.  Last week, most of us watched The Chef's favorite movie of all time, The Rookie.

He weeps every time the dad gets called up to the big leagues.  He'll deny it, but he does.

Other baseball themed movies on my list are Eight Men Out, Field of Dreams, The Natural (maybe, probably not a family movie), Pride of the Yankees, A League of Their Own (which we watched a few weeks ago), and The Sandlot.

I also own a copy of Champions of Faith, the baseball edition, but this is more of a documentary than a movie.

The Chef complains that most of the movies on my list are not heavy enough on the baseball.  Too much movie gets in the way.

So what baseball movies am I missing?

5.  Speaking of baseball, back to Battle of the Books, TWO kids on my team have declared that Honus & Me by Dan Gutman is their favorite book OF ALL TIME.

I reviewed Honus & Me way back in the day.  You can read that review here.

If you have a boy, or a girl who likes time travel and baseball, Honus & Me is a proven hit with the 4th grade crowd.

Plus, I love that Honus & Me combines sci-fi fiction with actual historical facts about superstar baseball legend, Honus Wagner and the true if bizarre story of his baseball card that really sold for $2.7 million dollars in 2007 to Wayne Gretzky.

Oh yeah.  Me thinks I may have already shoved Honus down your throats this year.  Whatever.

6.  I started watching Call the Midwife.  I came for the period drama, but I'm staying for the retro clothes and musical treasures.

I've already dropped the hint that I would really appreciate the 2-disc soundtrack from the show for Mother's Day, mostly because I love songs like this one.

7.  Happy Mother's Day to all you mums out there.  Another year of trying to be more like her:

and less like her:

down the (Fallopian) tube.  Sorry, couldn't resist.

I read this hilarious and somewhat foul-mouthed list of what mothers' really want.

Here's hoping all of your bathrooms visits will be undisturbed on Sunday, unlike this:

Linking up with Jen at Conversion Diary.  Hasta!

Theme Thursday: Mom

Happy Mother's Day!  

Linking up with Cari for Theme Thursday. 

7QT Birthday Trifecta Week!

1.  Jill is TWO!

She requested 'picy 'lami pizza, also known as pepperoni, pop, presents, and a pink cake.

2.  Everyone from around here already knows about Portillo's, famous for beefs, hot dogs, chopped salad, and chocolate cake.  

Yes, you can order entire chocoloate cakes at the drive-thru, for the low, low price of $17.  You can also order just a slice, or have a chocolate cake milkshake.

And if you eat inside Portillo's, you can have a beer with your cake.  Brilliant!

The chocolate cake is tall and moist and has a 3/4 inch coating of fudgy frosting laced with some highly addictive chemical that causes you to touch it and lick your fingers and wash your hands and touch it on repeat until it's gone.

I had heard rumors that the secret ingredient of the Portillo's cake was.....

BIG REVEAL....

Mayonnaise.

Yup.  Googled it.  Dozens of sites proclaim that they have the real Portillo's cake recipe, which is just 

• one box of fudgy, fudge chocolate, ultimate supermoist chocolate, chocolate fudge, or all butter recipe chocolate cake mix
• one cup of water (or 1/2 cup depending on the site you pick, I used 1 cup.)
• three eggs
• and one cup of mayo, Hellman's regular is recommended but I read about people substituting Mayo with Olive Oil, light mayo, and store-brand mayos with excellent results.

And the frosting?  The frosting is TWO cans of Betty Crocker chocolate frosting.  Fer realz.

Well, Betty Crocker chocolate frosting doesn't come in pink, so I made some Seven Minute Frosting, which always looks beautiful, and dyed it with 6 drops of toxins.  Seven Minute Frosting has NONE fat, trans fats, saturated fats, etc.  

Fatless frosting is pretty darn good, when topping a cake made with mayo, if I do say so myself.

3.  One birthday cake down.  Two to go.  The Chef is Forty today, and I will be following in his footsteps on Tuesday.  

Wait, we're not down birthday fete-ing yet.  Peter hits 17 later this month on a memorable day that is also the release day for Season 4 of Arrested Development on Netflix.

May the Fourth be with you!

So if you're noticing a down turn in blog posts around these parts, it's probably because of birthday (Mother's day, Eighth grade graduation, baseball) season, and not at all because I am re-watching all of the first three seasons of Arrested Development in preparation for the big day.

4.  Back to Jill's birthday, a friend of mine gave her a FurReal friend.

When you push a spot on the dog's back, he wags his tail and bobs his head up and down. 

She FREAKED OUT!  THREW IT across the room, and clung to my legs for dear life.  Then, I remembered how she is terrified of Zhu-zhu Pets, and other mechanical animals.

No, she hasn't outgrown that irrational feat at the ripe old age of Dos.  Yes, we laughed at her.  

5.  Now you too can play "Where's Jophine?"  sometimes called, "Where's Me?" or "Where's You?" or "Where is Everybody?"

6.  Who am I kidding?  I don't get to watch much Arrested Development these days because we are in the midst of hockey playoffs.  Why do professional hockey teams need to have 7 game series for each step in the playoffs?  Can't they figure out whose better after the first 3 or 5 games?  C'mon!

When left with a choice of reading books on the couch and being ignored by the older males in the home, or taking Lucy and Edmund to see a late showing of Iron Man 3, we booked it to the theater.

For the first time ever, I felt whatever that phobia is...fear of being in a large crowd.  

A massive line inside the cinema just waiting to get into the theater, then a sold-out show, and thoughts and prayers for the poor people in that Colorado theater made me a little nervous.  

Add to that the fact that it was a 9:30pm showing, the realization that the 9:30 crowd is a little sketchier and sometimes a wee bit more intoxicated than the 8:30 crowd, and the giants sitting at the end of our row, preventing any quick get-aways, ramped it up to medium nervous.  

Thankfully, the seat next to me was broken, and the could-have-been-professional-football-players-and-I-would-never-know were very friendly and polite.  Which is great, because getting in and out of a movie seat to use the restroom can be a somewhat intimate experience.

The movie was lots of fun.  I only had a few panic attacks wondering about how likely it is to get head-lice from a movie theater seat.  

Neurotic?  Or masochistic?  You make the call.

7.  Happy Birthday to the Chef!  

While at the theater, I recognized this guy.  He looks an awful lot like my guy.

He makes me smile every day.  Usually intentionally too.  This week, he attempted something like this smooth move with our remote control.

But he bobbled it, just like Michael Bolton bobbles his red solo cup in the scene from Office Space where he is informed that if caught, he will go to Federal Pound Me in the @$$ prison.  

I have not yet stopped laughing about him bobbling the remote.  

Yep.  Still smiling and chuckling.  Love that guy.

I spent all day trying to find/create a GIF of that scene.  I have failed you.  Next week, my friends.  Next week.  

Until then, check Jen and mega list of bloggers who also come up with 7 Quick Takes every Friday.

Until next Friday, stay thirsty my friends.

What We Wore on Sunday plus Stitch Fix

Eddie Bauer dress at least five years old, Old Navy cardi, shoes by Payless.

Edmund is wearing a Polo shirt, previously owned by Peter, some Talbot's Kids khakis, previously owned by Peter, and his Sperry's, new just for him.

The Chef is wearing an Eddie Bauer shirt, wrinkle-free for the win!  

He is also wearing pants. 

Missing:  Peter, who wore the same thing as last week, Susan, who was completely uncooperative, and Lucy, who sulkily posed for some totally awful photos that I refuse to put on the internet.  

I don't like doing this any more than they do.  As a result, this is probably my last What We on Sunday show.

Jill photobombs or tries to photobomb everything.  She's represented today, in the same gingham frock she wore last week.  She loves her Peent dress.

Me and my furry photobomber.

Stitch Fix came through for me!  Everything actually fit on my person, which is always a mood brightener.   Two items were solid wins, the rest were just "meh."

This is the Tula Stripe A Line Cap Sleeve dress.  It fits!  It's cute!  I wore it to our school's fundraiser last night and received many compliments, some from total strangers.  It's a keeper.

It didn't come with a belt, so I ran out and picked up this belt at Kohl's. I mentioned that the bracelet I wore last week was from Kohl's, and somebody from Kohl's actually read my blog and sent me a 10% off coupon code to share with all of you.  Just enter BLOGS10 on their website to get a little discount from Kohls.com. It can be stacked with one other code as well, for maximum savings.

I cropped off my grimace, so you're left with Slouchy McSloucherson and the Case of the Wrinkled Pants.

This is the Cheyanne Sheer Ruffle Detail Top that also came in my Fix.  I wore it to a play yesterday a.m., followed by a track meet.  Lovely and comfortable, it's staying here with me.

Here is what else came in the box that's not staying here:

The jersey wrap dress is just a tad too short, otherwise I love the color and the style.  The necklace is too long.  The striped cardigan is just okay.  It's a little too much of an orangey red for me, but otherwise it was cute.

So, that's my third and best Stitch Fix so far!  If you want to join the fun, use this link and if and when you order anything I get a little credit too.

Linking up with the nice girls at Fine Linen and Purple.