Pink flamingo and tea parties

As previously promised, I have an ever so slightly more interesting blog post for you today.  

We were invited to a Pink Flamingo party at Brendan and Travis's house on Saturday.  The last time they had one was in 2014 and it was an adults only party.  This year there were almost as many children as adults.

The kids got pink shirts so they could comply with the dress code.  It was pushing our luck to think I could find pink flamingo shirts for young boys the day of the party.  I was lucky enough to pick these up on the cheap at Walmart.

Travis has been experimenting with cake decorating and he made this cake!

Bobby gave us some competition for best dressed.

Our first family picture was a little sun splashed.

Monica insisted we needed a silly picture.

I bought my shirt right after the last pink flamingo party and it's been waiting in my closet for TWO YEARS.  It's mint green but speckled with little pink flamingos.  I found Michael's shirt at least a year ago.   It said flamingo and had a picture of a flamingo.  Nobody can claim that we didn't give our outfits our best effort. 

I don't have a picture of the whole thing as it looks now, but I remember when Brendan planted this pomegranate tree.  It was about 2 feet tall and had 3 branches.  Now it's enormous and very bountiful.

My kids were the last ones out of the pool.  I think we were the last ones to leave too.  Wow.  We closed out a party.   Of course it was, like, 8:30 pm.

Here's part of the pomegranate tree with lovely lights.  It's even bigger than what you can see here.

Elliott was hiding behind a castle of pillows. 

Not even Kaia could find him in there.

On Sunday Shireen hosted a tea party with finger foods for our sisterhood group. 

We all brought dishes to share. Everything had to be eaten with fingers or toothpicks. I brought the eggs, Lauren brought the olives.

Joni brought samosas. 

I brought pesto/cream cheese stuffed baby peppers.

Brenda brought little quiches and Lauren brought the other things that 3 days later I cannot remember what they were. 

We made sure to get our group picture before we ate. 

Then individual pictures of all of us.  Pinkies up for Sunday afternoon tea.

Maryellen made mini rice krispie treats.

Lauren brought lemon bars.

I made chocolate cream stuffed raspberries and naturally sweetened chocolate covered caramels. 

Shireen provided an entire variety of sweets.

The scones were amazing.

Individual fruit salads

After we ate and talked and teaed (newly invented word for drank tea), Joni had to leave and the rest of us played some very fun interactive games using the TV screen and our smart phones. 

The first one was a hilarious drawing game. 

I had to draw this.  The prompt was "I hate 3D".

The second game was all about telling lies.  I won.  Who knew I was so good at lying?

It was a fun weekend.  I also feel like it was the first weekend of some busy, busy weekends between now and, oh, Christmas. 

Mostly spices and Spencer's black eye

Sorry for my nearly week long absence. I had to finish some continuing education this past week so I could renew my state license for the Arizona Department of Health Services.  It was a pain of the biggest variety, but now I'm good for another two years.

An entire week ago on Sunday (the 21st) we went to the Waffle House for breakfast and then, since we were in the area, we stopped into Penzey's so I could redeem my free BBQ spice.

I've never seen Sweet Ginger Bits before.  I might have to buy them if only to take a picture with Ginger holding the bottle.

They had a new coloring table set up for kids and then you could hang your picture on this mast. 

Spencer did this all on his own.  No input from us at all.  I was very impressed.  It says, "Penzey's is the fire flower to my nose."

I bought a bottle of apple pie spice to finish off my spice collection.  Can you believe that we use all of these for different purposes?

That afternoon I was peacefully minding my own business when I got an email from Kirkland's about their fall preview day that started in 20 minutes.  They also reminded me I had $10 in rewards to spend.  

So, this happened.

After that I made a sugary, oatmeal topped apple crisp for my family, 

and a sugar free almond meal topped apple crisp for me.  I used the apple pie spice for both.

On Monday I made my first pie spice enhanced pot of coffee at the suggestion of Jeannette.  I might just do this year round from this point on. 

This was hanging in the hallway outside of Elliott's class that day.

I am adamant that I don't just let him play video games all day long, but here he is drawing a picture of him and Spencer playing video games. 

Monday night the kids were rough housing with each other and just as I told them to stop before somebody got hurt Elliott accidentally headbutted Spencer.  The blood filled hematoma was apparent within 5 seconds.  I nearly rushed him to urgent care but was urged (ha, ha, see what I did there?) by several people to wait.

This is about a minute later.

About five minutes later.

About 20 minutes later.  I didn't edit the color at all.  That's how big and dark it got. 

The next morning, on Tuesday, the hematoma had flattened out, but he had a nice shiner. 

I worked on Tuesday and then worked out when I got home.  I had been done for all of 30 seconds when Ms. Ginger decided to take a nap on the yoga mat. 

I talked to Elliott's OT, Mr. Chad on Wednesday, and part of our conversation was about how childish our days are because he's a pediatric OT and I'm a pediatric SLP.  On Thursday I sent him these pictures to show him how mature my day was. 

Spencer did his annual fun run on Thursday to raise money for his school.  He got almost $9 a lap ($8.50) in pledges and he ran all 35 laps.  He actually ran more, but they only count up to 35.

And finally, Friday was National Dog day and it wouldn't be National Dog day in our house without forcing Ginger to participate in a family picture.  

Saturday and Sunday were actually fairly busy and fun days so my next post might not put you to sleep.  Plus, we've got birthdays and a birthday party and travel coming up in the next two months, so my late summer blogging slump appears to be coming to an end.  Thank God.