tea and roses

my friend sharla asked me to help her plan our friend janean’s baby shower.  it only took two seconds thinking about before i had my heart set on an english tea party in a rose garden.  and then the ball was rolling.

sharla had an amazing and gracious friend who let us use her back yard.  the church lent us tables.  our host had all the linens and chairs.  another friend brought the mass quantities of snack sets.  everything went together lovely.

best of all i could tell the girls were utterly transported.

i think it was something they will always remember.

even judith was stoked.

sharla and i had so much fun planning.  i drove out to her house and we went through her storage shed collection of china.  not everyone keeps tea service for 40.

there she is.  a glutton for punishment that one.  she can hardly stand it.

she arranged the loveliest victorian table settings.  my dear husband even pressed and folded 40 cloth napkins.  he only does that when i’m pushing critical mass.

i re-used both the girls’ buntings on the gazebo.

a tour of teacups.  i had a set of 12 of these.  now i have 5 since the bottom of the box dropped out and sayonara.

the kids had a whole miniature service.

this green one (was) my favorite.

it’s a good thing there were so many flowers.  the girls couldn’t keep their hands off them.  fortunately i don’t think they made a real noticeable dent.

here is janean expecting number four.  (sharla, by the way, had her boy last week.  janenan is still packing.)

i got up that morning and baked a pile of blueberry scones.  sharla made lemon lavender shortbread cookies and fruit salad.  someone else brought cucumber sandwiches.  and best of all, my friend kimberly made clotted cream.  i’m thinking i should go back in time.

some of the prettiest girls in the world.

the children’s table.

judith, like her mommy, is fascinated by betsey johnson.

habbers found (and took) a friend.

pressies.

mischief.

i also made coconut chocolate mousse for dessert.  i came out and took them by surprise.  there was groaning all around.  i made them eat it.

and the perfect baby shower gift for a future tea partier.

we can hardly wait.  who is this mystery lady?

yard sale day

we’ve been making some hauls this summer.  but here are some little things that made me happy.  a baby scarf.

habber’s 50 cent outfit.

and better yet, slide phones for all the kids.  the fancy camera ones with keyboards and what have you.  75 cents a pop.  walking back to the car i turned around and all my kids were following behind “texting.”

habbers goes to sleep with hers.  “my pone!  my pone!”  your what?  (she could probably talk better if she hadn’t knocked out all of her teeth.)

grandma’s part deux

grandma is a sadist.  you should have seen all the stuff she loaded in the car to take eight grand-kids on this one day outing.

and that is exactly what grandmas are for.  this weekend the other grandma is taking her nine grand-kids to the sand dunes.  why anyone would want to add sand to that already daunting equation, i have no idea.

judo hanging out with grandad.

grandma hitting the trail.  6 miles.  (mommy waited at the other end, reading “the real downton abbey” in the car.)

grandad proving to be a lackluster babysitter.

trying out uncle rueben’s new canoe.

awe.

boys in search of adventure.

hey, who invited the girls?

the single uncle reuben.  (he’s just wearing that hat so other girls don’t try and steal him before you get the memo.)  oh yes, and that’s his “almost life jacket.”  does that make it a death jacket?  natalie and i were wondering.  because uncle reuben doesn’t exactly know how to swim.  it has something to do with the fact that in his youth, whenever he was within the proximity of water, he took the precaution of locking himself in the car.  i bet his subconscious still suspected that i might at any moment drop the camera and run push him in.

grandad warming up the habbers.

reuben and his doofus dog.

it was at this moment, while grandma was trying to shove everyone in reuben’s canoe, that the safety inspector came by.

arriving at the other dock for rabber’s turn.

she wasn’t entirely convinced.

dock posse.

judith and her omnivore cousin, haddassah.  as reuben is fond of saying, “that baby looks like she ate your baby.”  he’s not impressed with my breeding skills.  oh yeah, let me see what you got, bro.

sarah saying, “oh, this old thing?  i only found it at the thrift store.”  so no, you can’t go buy yourself one.  a puffed sleeve monopoly.  injustice.

s’mores.

the handsome gideon.

the obviously not dead grandad.  who needs more than three red blood cells anyways?

“patience, young padawan.”

eyeballs.

and reuben demonstrating yet other child safety techniques.

with so many spectacular relatives i am relieved to know that i am under no obligation to be cool or exciting.  huzzah.

ain’t no party like my nana’s tea party

if you’ve been missing me it’s because i’ve been gone.  now i’m back, but i’ve spent the last two days washing everything in the combined wardrobe of seven people.  but we had fun at grandma’s house.  just ask jehu.

while we were there i helped natalie throw a going away tea for her friend ping, who was here on foreign exchange.  the weather was inclement, so i opted to move things inside the teahouse.  (formerly known as the “greenhouse.”  but that was before i kicked out all of reuben’s tomatoes, vacuumed, and moved in the settee.)

my friend mackenzie, arriving in style followed by her charming posse of six.  cute, eh?

the teahouse.  obviously wasted on plants.

natalie bought a variety of loose teas from the co-op.  another friend brought fresh cream from their farm.

and everyone else brought food.  if only i could wish myself back in time….

natalie’s friend naphtali holding baby judo.  i had begun to develop my suspicions, but while on this trip it was confirmed that my mother cannot pronounce the name “judith.”  (just like she can’t pronounce “rahab.”  to her it’s ray-hawb.)  anyways, get this, judith is judas.  as in iscariot.  not cool mom.

packing them in.  i think we had unrealistic expectations as to how many people we could actually fit in a potting shed, but we tried.  it was rather comic getting ready for this party as well.  my mother and i ended up in town all morning until two and natalie had to stay in school until three.  when we did get home, i decided to sew a batik bunting for the side of the shed, my dad decided to put the bats up , while my mother up and paints the front of the house.  putting bats on the greenhouse wouldn’t have been such a big deal if it didn’t mean my dad had to roll a new log on the sawmill and mill them up from scratch.  seriously, he did.  and to think they were all giving me guff for sewing, when we had “so many things to do.”  like i’m the person who’s crazy around here.  😉

isn’t it cozy?

in the back corner you might be able to see the vintage sink mom wants to plumb in for watering plants.  they “found” it in the back of the garage.  it’s a big garage.

i would also like to point out that the person who built the teahouse is single and moderately handsome.

though not exceptional with children.

we were sitting on the couch once while he was helping me buckle the baby into her seat.  all of the sudden he got this look in his eye and said ominously, “oooo, 5-point safety harness!”   next thing you know it was baby ferris wheel.

of course, it all depends on your perspective.

the babies think he’s great.

here is ping.  i don’t know what it is, but the kids all love her.  i think it’s the name “ping” (it’s just fun to say) and the fact that she can’t speak english well enough to dissuade them from tailing her.  when she left, jehu went to bed in tears, insisting it was “worse than dying.”    i’ll be posting fan mail to thailand in a few weeks.

another tea partier.

natalie and her friends hanging out in the tree house.

it was a lovely time.  and having a teahouse rocks.  i want one.  the perfect place for warming up on a spring day, reading books,  touring pinterest, enjoying a pot of tea with friends, watching movies, being able to escape to at least one place that’s clean, or having sleep overs.  reuben strung hammocks up and put mattresses underneath and we slept 5 little kids in there.  snug as bugs.  a teahouse is now on my official wish list.  reuben even takes orders if you want one.  or you could trade your daughter in marriage and get one for free.  i’d call that a steal.  (who knows what else you could get him to make you.)

the greats

my grandparents are staying with us a few days.  on friday we went to every yard sale in town.  almost.  grandma bought habbers this new dress.

i bought grandma a gel manicure.  she let me pick the color.  (but that was before she found out it doesn’t come off.)

and grandpa bought jale a $15 sewing machine.  real enough to work.  cheap enough to break.  the first thing she did was sit down and sew herself a pillow case.

in her princess dress, pearls, and fairy wings.  of course.

she makes a nice straight stitch too.

i gave her some material and she sat down and ran through a whole bobbin.  she can work the presser foot and drive, neat as a whistle.

of course, grandpa still has to thread the needle.  what are grandpa’s for?

and judith likes having even more people around who love her.  that or she just likes to be carried.  particularly by people with handles.

spooooooooiled.

grandma doesn’t believe that babies should ever cry.

baby agrees.

riding herd

i babysat for a friend last week.  a friend with girls.  and not just any girls, red headed girls.  at one point i clocked the women folk at 10.  the boys were sadly outnumbered with only 3.

it was a riot.  i believe i woke up sore the next day.

but children love riots.

especially when you add sticky and fire.  then everyone is happy.

isn’t daddy a saint?

rahab and her somewhat leery friend.  maybe if habbers didn’t trash talk her guests after windmilling them she’d get farther when it comes to winning friends and influencing people.

and if you must know, i’m rather infamous for my backyard.  it is, and always has been, an absolute pile.  literally.  and the kids love it.  i just thank the lord i have a privacy fence and then don’t go back there.

my number one son.  on his way to practice that evening he was soliciting the girls to see if any of them knew how to tie shoes.  which was making me bust up.  i’ll be teasing him about that well into his twenties.

“she seems like a nice girl, son.  but can she tie shoes?”

for the mas

i just realized what’s wrong with this photo (other than it being fuzzy).  no one’s smiling.  the self-timer must put the fear of god in people.  3 seconds to detonation….

weirdos

the kids taped cellophane on their eyes and ran out to greet daddy as he came home from work.  he got out of his truck and said, “well don’t you look like a little bunch of homeschooled kids.”

homeschooled kids with superpowers maybe.

bwahaha!  secret agent man and super baby!

ottos gone wild

it was first thursday last week.  we loaded the kids up on suckers and iced coffees and took them to the idaho historical museum and boise art museum for free admission.

yee-haw!

that day the kids had even got their art anthology in the mail.  so they were super stoked to go to the art museum for the first time and see the real stuff.  unfortunately, the current exhibits seemed to be primitive basket weaving, picketing signs, old lady glass vases with chipmunks, and a herd of life-size, white elephants inflated by electric fans.

i thought it was funny that the elephants had a plaque that said they represented our unsustainable culture and how it’s a “white elephant” that no one talks about.  while it occurred to me, that for once, the white elephant in the middle of the room that no one talks about, might just be…a white elephant in the middle of the room that no one talks about.  except for gideon.  who walked through the door and blurted out indignantly, “hey, this isn’t art!”  kids.  the constant plague of emperors.

moral of the story, don’t let your children browse an entire volume of art history before taking them to see the “real stuff.”  they might be sadly disappointed.  jehu suggested that maybe they had run out of good things to paint.  although he did find one (the only) painting in the whole museum he liked.  it reminded him of “the garden of earthly delights” by bosch.  a painting, which probably has no business reminding him of anything.

now watch mommy censor the art book with painters tape.  i’m sooo fascist.

just ask anyone.

doing school

but  you never really know….

odds are they’re just goofing off.

which is why i’m installing a row of antique school desks in the living room.  the kind that bolt to the floor.  then i’m going to get a ruler.  and maybe i’ll even put clothes on them.  things are getting serious.