Three Birthdays and an Internment

April was filled with celebration. It was Tim's 33rd birthday on the very same day we arrived back from Universal Studios.  We went with a store-bought cake that was delicious and had a lovely evening of cake, presents and pizza. Timothy was more than happy to rest and skip any other party activities. 

Elijah turned 21 in April. We had a small donut and gift celebration at home. Elijah doesn't like cake as much as some other desserts. He was really delighted with his gifts and thanked us over and over again. We then took him to a fun cafe that has more than 700 games to play, plus nice light food such as sandwiches and pastries. Some of his friends came and they had a great time playing games. Rebekah, David and I played giant Uno and Worst Case Scenario at a different table. 

My mother also celebrated her 75th birthday this month. She decided to have the same cake as Tim, because she had enjoyed it so much.  

We also took Grandma to the Harlem Globetrotters. She enjoyed it, and because our arena is pretty small, we got great seats. It was a very lively show. 

Easter was a calm and peaceful day. We kept it slow and had a nice ham dinner. 

My Father-in-Law passed away last September, but his internment at his home church did not happen until April. We all traveled home to lay him to rest in his final resting place. It was nice to see all of my husband's side of the family and visit the church where we were married almost 25 years ago. 

Blessings, Dawn

A Murder Mystery Dinner Party

 We decided to have my 50th birthday party a few weeks early since Rebekah will be out of town on my actual birthday. She really wanted me to have a party and wanted to be able to help plan and attend it. We decided to have a murder mystery dinner party. We used Masters of Mystery which is an online site that has lots of game options. We purchased the 1940's post war party set in a London Mansion. It came with all of the character booklets, the game, invitations, costume ideas and the host instructions. Each character received their own booklet that was about 11 pages long and led them through all of the rounds with scripted answers to questions that other players would ask them. We were very pleased with the Masters of Mystery game. It was very detailed and easy to follow. 

We decided to have the party outside since Covid is climbing in our area and my mother is having surgery and Rebekah is leaving for a dance intensive this week. It would be a devastating time to get Covid. Fortunately, we have a carport which has proven to be especially useful in recent years. We decided to add an extra layer of protection by having everyone sit in family or neighborhood groups. This allowed us to use our multiple sets of dishes which are in small sets which was an extra bonus of using multiple tables. 

As each person arrived they gave their secret letter to Dear Husband who was the host/investigator.  He placed their letter in a jar for later and gave them their booklet and character name tag.  After round one he took one random letter from the jar and announced the murderer by letter. They then played off the guilty side of their booklet (with out the rest of us knowing). After a little bit of socializing, we did round one and got our plates of food. 

 

We served rotisserie chicken, roasted vegetables, dinner rolls and strawberries. We also made mock Champagne (ginger ale and white grape juice) and spa water (lemons and strawberries). 

We bought the cake at Harris Teeters. It was lemon filled white cake. We picked it because it looked the most retro, but it was also tasty. 

It was all around a lovely birthday party. We had a blast and it was so nice to have some social time with some of my friends. Dear husband did a superb job of leading us through the game. We some how missed getting any pictures of my husband or Rebekah and only got the above picture of me. The boys opted out of my party and will do something special with me on my actual birthday. 

Blessings, Dawn

Goodbye, Birthday Month ... Hello, May

April flew by quickly. We celebrated three birthdays here. Elijah turned 20 this past week. He is doing really well. We are so pleased with what a nice young man he has become. He is popular at work and everyone always has nice things to say about him. He finds his job in fulfillment at Target challenging, interesting and a bit stressful right now because of the major renovation Target is going through. He is still working part time, but enough hours that he has a benefit package now. 

He also has a nice friend group which he plays with online and a group of teens and young adults that he does Belegarth Medieval Sports with each weekend. His savings is growing and he is learning more and more about managing his money. Now, if I could just convince him to learn to drive. That is a major goal this summer. 

My husband celebrated 15 years at the local Veterans Hospital on the same day as Elijah's birthday. He is a supervisor now of just over a dozen people. He finds the job a bit more stressful than he thought it would be and sometimes works six days a week right now to try and offset the major understaffed issues that his hospital has dealt with for years. The higher you go up the ladder just means the more jobs you seem to do. He still spends hours every day in addition to his new job duties doing his old job duties, because they are so understaffed. He is a very busy man. 

 

We shot confetti cannons at him. 

My mother also celebrated her birthday. She had her traditional Angel Food cake and we served her homemade Chicken and Dumplings. Then we played scrabble and Rebekah creamed us all. 

We started the month off with Tim's birthday, which I already wrote about in an earlier post. 

It was a very busy month between all of these lovely birthdays and celebrations and our family vacation. Now, if the pollen would just settle down so I could breathe and stop itching...LOL. There is much to do in May to prepare for summer. Rebekah will be away from home most of the summer. It is going to be a new experience for all of us. More on that later.

Blessings, Dawn

The Big 50!

Hello 50! Dear Husband turned 50 this week. I decided to have a farewell party for the first 49 years and a celebration of what is to come. I wanted to make the table look creepy and took inspiration from Miss Havisham's wedding table (Great Expectations). The kids and I collected the silver from around the house, which included David's silver baby cups. We set the table with a black twin sheet, silver, white plates and paper birthday plates. We then added a tombstone, which I had purchased for Halloween decorating. It had a window on the tombstone for adding a photo or you could keep the provided skeleton photo. We added a picture of David from his high school graduation. We added 49 years under RIP to represent the ending of 49 years of life and the beginning of (hopefully) many more years to come. Then we covered the table with cob webs. It came out to look very close to what I had imagined. He was so surprised! We had to break through the cobwebs to have dinner.

David wanted to do a challenge for his 50th birthday and decided to try ziplining. He did a course near our home that had seven ziplines and one swinging bridge. He was very brave and completed the entire course. He wants to know if I want to do it for my 50th in a few months....NO WAY! Not a chance. I did do ziplining when I was a teenager. One time was more than enough for me,  thank you very much.

 

David with his chocolate peanut butter cake

In other news...I finally got the basement stairs painted. We peeled up lots of broken no-slip tiles, sanded and then painted the stairs. They look so much better. I am really relieved to have that job accomplished. 

Before

After

Everything else is going pretty well. Elijah has many more positive days than negative at Target. He is really getting used to the job and is making a few friends among his co-workers. He still worries that he isn't working fast enough sometimes and doesn't understand every single instruction, but he knows how to get help now when he is confused.

Rebekah is stressed that she isn't improving in dance fast enough but is overall pleased with the program. She is very hard on herself. She also got her driver's license the day after her birthday. They didn't have her take a road test. They just said her record was good for the last 18 months of learner's permits and handed her a full 8 year license. She is one lucky girl.

Blessings, Dawn

Happy 18th Birthday Tea Party!

Rebekah requested a mismatched tea party. In other words, she wanted to use china, but not our finest china set that all matches. I came up with the theme of pink and white with blue and gold accents. Then I started pulling things from around the house. We had almost enough tea cups that had been picked up from thrift shops for our picnic basket, but I was lacking one. I also found that it would be nice to have some simple white plates to pull all the mismatched items together. So,  I headed out to a few thrift stores. I scored at the second-hand store and found a tea cup, six white plates and several tea bag coasters for a total of $15. I plan to keep the plates. We may donate the tea cup and some of the tea coasters back to the thrift store, because they are not really our style but worked for the moment. I sometimes treat thrift stores as rental stores. I can use it for the moment but don't need to litter up the house with tons of rarely used and uncherished belongings. After all, it would have cost $15 to buy all these items in paper form, and then they would have been thrown away. It is better for the environment, too. I also picked up some country pink roses from Trader Joe's.

Finally, I was ready to set the table. I didn't have a pink table cloth so I used my daughter's childhood twin Matelassé blanket which was packed away. It worked perfectly as the base. Then I took a lace dresser runner that was in the waiting to go to Goodwill bag, because it had a snag in it. However, the roses and tea pots covered up its flaws. 

Next, I added all of the dishware and flatware. The table was really starting to come together. I made roses with our pink napkins. YouTube has so many instructional videos on folding napkins. 

Rebekah's place setting with one of her favorite cups. 

The final touch was the candlesticks I had found at a thrift store last year.

I overheard Rebekah saying she hoped there would be balloons at her party, so I stopped by the party store and picked up this adorable bat bouquet. One of Rebekah's favorite animals is bats. It was actually meant to be a Halloween bouquet, but I added the #18 balloon and it worked perfectly. 

Lastly, the food...Rebekah requested all of her favorite foods. She wanted homemade 18 hour bread, ham quiche and apple pie. I made the apple pie in advance and froze it until it was time to bake. The bread was started the night before and the quiche was made that day, with pie crust my husband had made and frozen in advance. 

She was a very happy birthday girl. I love my kids so much! It is amazing to realize that they are now all adults. I am so enjoying watching them bloom. The harvest is beautiful.

Blessings, Dawn