Birthdays & a Balloon Bash

First Post of the Day

It's only January 11, but already we have celebrated two family birthdays.

Lisa's birthday is December 30, but due illness in the family, her celebration was postponed a week.

Craig and I were healthy, though, so we took her out for lunch on her birthday.

We went downtown to The Black Sparrow, a local restaurant in one of the historic downtown buildings so it has a lot of ambiance and charm inside. Plus, all the food is made from scratch and is delicious!

We spent the day together watching football (Illinois played in the Music City Bowl and won!) and had gifts and Hershey pie that evening.

The next Sunday was a big day for both Ian and for Mila. In our church, twelve year olds are invited to begin serving during meetings, help on service projects, etc. Ian turns twelve this year and so his name was read to the congregation and then he was sustained by everyone present.

Good night, when did this guy become a young man?? And so tall? I predict that by my birthday in August he will be taller than me. (Although at the rate he is growing, it may be well before that.)

It was also a big day for Mila. She was celebrating her birthday that day!

We gathered that evening at her home for dinner and gifts and then just hung out as a family. Both Lisa and Mila's birthdays were celebrated that evening and master cook Curt made their favorite dishes.

Gus is always delighted when there are more people around who are candidates for throwing a ball for him. I have never seen a dog more obsessed with catching and running after balls.

He will bring one to you and plop it in your lap. Ignore it! Don't even push it onto the floor or thrown "just one"; Gus will consider that an invitation and repeatedly put balls into your lap. (Ask me how I know that.)

If a ball in your lap doesn't get you to play, then Gus will put the ball in a spot where it is more visible. Just in case you hadn't noticed the bajillion balls that had already been plopped into your lap.

Since this was a birthday party, there were balloons. And suddenly this delightful interchange happened between Gus and Lukie.

That dog is actually batting the balloon with his nose - he's not trying to catch it! He's hitting it back to Lukie!

There may be another post coming today - stay 'tooned!

A Beautiful Easter

Did you know that dogs like cake? And that your normally well behaved dog might just cave while you are at Church and do some counter surfing? Which culminates in a text like this? 

"Sorry, we are going to be late to dinner. Gus ate the cake while we were at Church and Vanessa is making another one."

Gus is a Standard Poodle and the tallest dog of all of the family dogs. He's sweet and there is nothing he would rather do than play ball. (Here he has set one on the kitchen table in the hopes that someone will toss it for him.) As tall as he is, counter surfing isn't difficult but he is well trained and the food is safe. Usually.

Having said that, the carrot cake that Vanessa had left cooling on the kitchen counter proved to be too much for him and he caved, leaving only remnants for the rest of us. (I really can't blame him; Vanessa is an excellent cook!)

Luckily Vanessa was able to get another cake baked (lemon this time) before we met at Leslie's farm in Brookston for Easter dinner.

It did not take long for the usual family shenanigans to begin.

Such as Les being caught eating the crunchy onions that were supposed to go on the green bean casserole. 

AND, not sharing them with her sisters when she did.

Our nephew, Eric, who often is in Europe for work, was able to join us. He is leaving to go back in a week so we were glad to have him with us.

During dinner, it came to light that Lukie likes butter. 

Like, REALLY.

Directed by Mama Vanessa to cut it down to a more reasonable size, it wobbled off the roll and onto the floor, but no harm done.

Ian and Lisa.

After dinner, we all gathered outside for an Easter egg hunt that Leslie and I put together.

I bought and filled the eggs; she hid them around the farm.

The farm is nine acres, but we limited it to the three fenced acres around the house.

The kids were given 30 seconds to hunt before the adults were allowed to join in.

It was rumored that the kids had scoped the place out a bit first; had some of the adults, too? Curt and Vanessa sure were casual and confident as they began! (Hah!! I just spied a pink egg hidden in the arm of the clothesline!)

It was a lovely day for our hunt.

Those eggs were hidden well - we did not find them all!

But finally we called it quits and walked back up to the house for prizes.

Mila won a golden egg as did Eric,

while Lukie and Ian shared a giant chocolate T-Rex. (Which Leslie coveted - she loves T-Rexes, but since she'd hidden the eggs, she could not win any prizes.)

Mila opened her golden egg and consolidated all her candy into it.

Then it was back into the house for the final event of the day - eating Hershey pie, lemon cake, and watching Purdue beat Tennessee in their Elite Eight game and make it to the Final Four of the NCAA tournament!

We are off to Phoenix next weekend! (Cartoon by Dave Sattler and shared on social media.)***

The team celebrating after their win yesterday.

Boiler up and hammer down!!

*** Dave is a long time friend of mine. I'll write about him another time, but one of my most treasured of all his drawings is one he gifted me as a surprise. It is framed and hangs in our bedroom.

He even included his cat, Boo, knowing that I was very fond of that cat.

Worn Out from the Weekend

What a weekend! The Great Lakes Congress show was so much fun but it absolutely wore me out - Sunday I got up and went to church, then came home, put my jammies back on, and went back to bed for more snoozing.

I have not unpacked the car yet, but I will do that today. In the meantime, here are a couple of things I want to share.

Tiffany Purdy gave me this ribbon during the show, but it wasn't because I won anything. What a blast from the past! Of course, I shared photos of it with Kathy Bateman. 

During the show, Nancy Falzone and I had the opportunity for a long chat and that was just the best! 

Sunday morning when I got up to get ready for church, I let Pepper out to do her business and noticed that she was quite interested in the rolling planter on the patio.

A closer look showed that there was a baby bunny or two under the planter!

After church I checked on those bunnies - there were seven of them hopping around the patio! They disappeared for the afternoon but then came back to sleep for the night under the planter again.

Friday Kris Gallagher sent me a photo of a set up she did of mutton busting- she made the dolls and the sheep! Isn't that cool?!

I passed it on to Jessica so she could show it to her mutton busting kids. They all got a kick out of seeing their sport done with model horses.

Finally, I don't think I've shared this yet, but there's a new dog in the family.

Meet Gus, the Standard Poodle. He belongs to Curt and Vanessa and is a great family dog. (Although he does tend to jump OVER the couch instead of trotting around it.)

Gussie is 16 months old and very, very good with the kids. 

Curt told me that he especially likes that Gussie is the same color as his own childhood dog, Duffy, our English Springer Spaniel. 

That's it for today - I'm still tired but I'm going to get started unpacking the show tubs and taking inventory on the Mercantile merchandise. More to come tomorrow!

Stay 'tooned!