SURPRISE!!!

This weekend, we headed up to Roanoke for a surprise party!
Nabo graduated from schooling, and we're all so proud of him.
His Wifey, Ana, organized a surprise dinner for him.
Aside from his many questions and her lying through her teeth, we think he was surprised!
We ate at Frankie Rowlands.
It was very yummy.
Everything was quite delicious.
I almost forgot to pull out the camera, but I was able to get a few shots in

My guinea pigs for testing out the camera settings...sorry guys!

Another camera test shot, sorry guys!!

The Katies

Surprise!!
it took us a minute to notice that they walked in, we were too busy chatting :)

The Katies sipping

My Entree, it was sooo yummy! 

The husbands filet, also quite yummy, it was way bigger than it looks in this shot!

The BEST Creme Brulee ever!

I don't know which one is happier that he graduated...my guess is on Ana!

On top of the food you see pictured above, I also enjoyed a fresh mozzarella and tomato spinach salad, duck con fix {next time, I'm getting that for my entree!}, scallops mmm, asparagus and hollandaise sauce, and mashed potatoes...everything was the best ever.  mmm.

It was a short but sweet weekend...

I also got to sip coffee in a coffee shop with my friend Bethany who ordered that beautiful lilac flower in a previous post, and give her the yarn for my beanie that she's making for me!  Can't wait to get it.

Also, for the first time, we visited Eitak's congregation on Sunday.  {Generally we go to Ana's} The friends were so friendly!  And I met a sister who owns a shop downtown full of awesome goodies made by local artists, and she said she'd love to maybe sell my flowers in her shop!  Cool!  So I'll be emailing her about possibly working something out in that regard!

I guess I need to get busy on making more flowers :)

Oh and if you want a quick laugh at my expense...
on our journey up to VA, KennaKat asks "Mommy, how does your belly get so big?" {I know, flattering right?}  So after I finished crying on the inside laughing I said "I guess you could say it's because I had you two in there."  and Ethylwolfe so kindly adds "yeah, and that's how she's a little bit fatter than daddy."  Thanks guys!  I guess I'll be visiting the zumba classes an a regular basis in the future!

In case you are wondering, I rationalize these insults by the fact that KennaKat absolutely LOVES bellies and asks every person she sees if they are pregnant, flat belly or not, and also the fact that E said that I was only a little bit fatter than daddy...could be worse as my husband is quite the lean guy  ;)


Have a great Week guys!!

This is who I am

You could say that I exhibit procrastination tendencies...

If I can put it off, I most likely WILL put it off...

Case in point:

Waaaay back in July, I purchased a groupon for $50 on Mixbook.com.  The plan was to make a photobook for each of the kids, from birth on.  The coupon expires on January 31...have I even started on the photobooks for either of them?  Well, I could go on to provide a handful of excuses but the answer at the end comes to NO.  No I have not.  So now only a few days away from my deadline, I'm scrambling to weed through the remainder of old picture files of the kids {remember when I told you about how our pictures were deleted...twice}  So I'm separating my faves into 2 folders.  One for boy and one for girl.  In hopes of making my book making process easier.

Ok, that's not why I started this post.  During my photo search, I remembered that I forgot to share pictures of our beach trip in the fall.  So I thought I would do that now... enjoy!  


{Plus I feel really guilty for all the terrible non-focused pictures as of late...these are better, I promise...well, if you like looking at cute kids that is...well, I think they're cute (in my totally non-biased opinion) I could literally eat.them.up. any day of the week.}

What kind of mother would I be if I didn't share this great shot?!
In case you are wondering, what are those crazy kids looking at?...
after showering off, they saw a leaf that looked Just.like.a.frog.
{this picture will go into BOTH of their photo-books, wahahaha}

There were hundreds of dragonflies racing by and see that beautiful sunset?  I got to paint that!  It was beautiful...the sunset, not my painting.  My painting was...eh.

Uncle Pat reading to the kids

Our last day :(

I can not WAIT to go back to the beach!  This house was perfect for us!  Hopefully next time, the other half of the family wont be having babies and being busy, and we'll all be able to go together :)

CIAO!

Pottery Painting

Yesterday I met up with Twistyn halfway at a pottery painting studio....child free!

{WOOHOO!}

We were supposed to meet at 2, but I was late...REALLY late.

Things have been taking me forever to get done lately.

It stinks.

I hate being slow.

{I'll blame it on sleep deprivation...yeah, let's go with that}

So I got there are 2:30ish and we picked out platters to paint.

I don't own a platter, and have been wanting one for a while now.

The livingsocial vouchers that I bought were for $20,

and that's how much the platter cost, so we ended up only paying tax.

I LOVE that!

The place that we went to is called The Mad Platter in Burlington.

I had never heard of it but apparently, it has been there since the late 80's or early 90's.

The things I liked about the place are: you don't have a studio fee or have to pay to use the special paints.

They have a smaller selection than some of the places I've been to before, but that could have been because they had been wiped clean from xmas.  And they weren't slammed like the last place I went to.

We had a lot of fun.
We were there much longer than planned...but it was so nice to go and not have to supervise kids, I could just paint away to my hearts content.  It was wonderful.  We left at 6 and Twistyn had to rush away to her meeting.  The hubby took on Pizza Night, so I was very thankful to not have to cook when I got home.

Wanna see?

We will definitely be going back sometime soon.

I can't wait to see what they look like after they have been fired and glazed!

SQUEAL!

Family Weekend

Last Weekend was FAMILY WEEKEND

The schedules conflicted a little bit,

but we were able to work in almost 24 hours of all of us together

I didn't get a lot of shots,

but I'll summarize what we do have...

We headed over on Thursday to Bri, Nate, Deli and AJ already there.  Uncle Mark flew in that morning.  And our Family Weekend began.  For dinner we had Stuffed Shells and Fruit Salad and lots of pie, mmm!

Eitak arrived near midnight and we spent a little time laughing before heading off to bed.

After family pictures on Friday, we headed back to the house and had pizza night.  Everyone made their own pizzas...

well, almost everyone, a few just gleaned off of others :)

While we were busy making pizzas, Miss Deli came out of our room wearing nothing but Ethylwolfe's undies :)

Smores dessert pizza, mmmm

After pizza, we had craft time!

{Well, actually it started earlier in the day with a lesson on felt flower making}

Here we have an oil painting lesson

inspired from O'keeffe's beautiful flowers

Nani's brother came to town for a visit, he hasn't been here in 15 or so years!

After oil painting, Twistyn gave Eitak and myself a knitting lesson!

It was entertaining ;)

{most of these pictures were taken by KennaKat}

Saturday morning, Eitak and Nate had to leave for an RBC build

and Twistyn and I headed out to service.

We had a lovely morning.

After lunch we decided to take a walk through the neighborhood

and head to the eno

Pat said something about Twistyn's hair smelling funny, she protested "Whoa!  You don't even know what my hair smells like!"...

So he had to smell to prove it...

{Ok, that's not what happened, but you never know with these two! ;) }

Brothers!

The boys were having some kind of deep conversation

And that's all for the pictures that I've got.

That night we had pot roast and more pie.

Then we played the new Trivial Pursuit.

Sunday we attended Nani's meeting.

Good thing we did because most of the congregation was out of town!  Lots of commenting opportunities! yay!

We hung out for the rest of the day and then headed home.

We enjoyed a nice long weekend spent with the whole family.

unfortunately we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like

but the time we do have is priceless.

Love you guys!!