It was our turn to host tonight and we had a small group as two families couldn’t make it… But we made up for it in craziness.
The group selfie…
And then we had Katie take a picture!
And then one of the kids mentioned Pie Face and we had whipped cream for the dessert, so… There was lots of this.
Some Tivo peeps met for breakfast before flights out…
Nancy was helping me with a Jamberry manicure and Ken decided he wanted a few nails done as well.
Nancy and I tried to recruit two friends to the wonderful LipSense world today…and I introduced them to my infamous (?!) stairwell shooting location. 😊
Tammy and Amy helping me roll bread balls for garlic bread bites.
The whole group!
Uncle Eddy!
We need a bigger table!
The dessert table! Eddy helped me make a cheese flan (with a caramelized top) in the instant pot (far right) and it turned out great! And Amy brought three cakes from Juniors Cheesecakes!
This is why we need better outdoor space! This is where everyone always wants to congregate and we only have eight chairs with barely enough space to hold them!
The party mostly died out by about 11 and just a handful of us stayed talking to about midnight. It was a great night with great friends…
Trying out each other’s lipsticks before heading out to lunch! Neither of us liked the colors on us but liked the colors on the other!
In Occoquan! Nancy and Eddy gave us grief over the name and called it something different every time they said it which was hilarious. I think Khakakan was our favorite.
Our lunch that took forever and a day. Excellent food, awful timing.
Uncle Eddy showing off the awesome portrait camera setting on the iPhone 7+ (blurred background). I want it badly but the phone is just TOO big.
This was the weekend of our first (of potentially two) going away parties… And it was all for the TiVo peeps! (We debated having just one party but that would be soooo many people!)
Ones of the goals was to pare down our alcohol stash…
And freezer contents… This is like four racks of ribs (another two went in the instant pot).
The Mitchells were going to be in Virginia visiting Amanda (getting the nursery ready!) so they had planned to come visit us…but since we were going to be close to them after flying, we met for lunch!
Birthday party fun—spending a token on my favorite “game.”
Post-dinner dancing.
It was a gorgeous day so we spent some time outside with our friends at their house.
A well-traveled TiVo friend that we’ve been wanting to meet forever finally crossed our path at a convenient time! (He’s the one we got our gnomes and awesome vases from!) We drove to his hotel in National Harbor and then went out for a delicious Peruvian dinner.
We were at a friend’s babysitting and Katie had to put on Liam’s new gecko costume.
This time it was one of his high school classmates and her high school daughter.
Maddie and Owen have been friends since kindergarten but have never been in the same class! They do ride the same bus, though, so see each other every day. She will stop by to see if Owen is home and wants to go to the playground. He was at baseball practice when she stopped today, so when he got home I sent him up to her house and they went to the playground. After he asked if she could come over. Of course! And what did they do? Look at and talk about Pokémon cards for an hour!
My friend Caitlin convinced me to go outside my box and travel 30 minutes to take the kids to an indoor play area. The kids had fun; I got to catch up on my reading. 🙂
Owen was invited to a sleepover at his friend Nick’s house (they have the day of tomorrow for a teacher work day). Another friend came over and the mom sent me this picture. They were all in kindergarten together and Owen and Nick are in the same class this year. (Owen has also played baseball with Xander.)
This is the type of thing that I am really going to miss when we move. 🙁
Oops! This was from last Sunday, March 12. I’ll move it to that date shortly.
Xander, Owen, and Nic (left to right) were all in kindergarten together. Jayden just moved here in January and is in Owen’s class (and lives one street over from us!)
I was hosting an online Facebook party for this cool new lipstick and had included people from all times of my life…and the consultant was posting fun games for them to earn raffle entries. This one she did was so sweet and the responses made me happy cry. 🙂 I’m posting it so I can look back on it when I’m having a bad day.
We had our monthly get-together with friends, and had the girls all stand together. From left to right, it’s Sheila (3), Katie (4), and Reilly (5). They all have July birthdays (so it’s not like one is 4y11m and the next is 5y1m). Yes there is a bit of difference between age 3 and 5, but really, it’s all pretty even.
My friend had to take an exam so I came and sat at the house with Katie while her son napped. Well, Caitlin spoils Katie and had out markers and crayons and pages to color and a bucket of water beads…and she was elated. I have to admit the water beads are super cool. 🙂
Katie was SO excited when Liam woke up from his nap. Hell, Liam was so excited, too, when he saw Katie! I so wish I would have been recording when he came to the stairs—she got this super excited look on her face and said LIAM!!! and he got this super excited look on his face and said (in his so cute 3yo voice) KAYDEE!!! Oh man, it melted my heart. And then she had to help take him to the potty. 🙂
They play well enough together that I didn’t have to oversee much and I stayed in the living room on the couch while they were in the kitchen with the bucket of water beads. And then I heard chairs moving and water splashing…and got up to discover this:
They knew they couldn’t reach it and Katie told me since there was only one stool they got the chairs! Smart kid, right? So I moved it to the floor on a towel and everyone was happy!
Later, Katie got on one of her favorite toys. (I am GOING to get two of these if the floors in our next house are good!)
And really, it was more of an ice day as we only got 1-2″ of slushy snow (and it was called last night with just the threat of snow and ice). But, Tom had a 3-hour delay which he turned into a telecommute day so everyone was home!
Friends invited us over to play in their yard and go sledding on the hill behind their house.
On our way!
This is what sledding looks like when you can still see grass. 🙂
Cool icicles off the top of the fence!
Owen loses Liam on a bump!
The kids were having a blast, even though the snow wasn’t great.
I wish I’d been recording when Owen slammed into the signpost so he could see just how close he was and why we tell them to be careful. We’d warned them all to try and steer clear of the trees and sign and to ditch the sled (roll off) if they came close…but of course that didn’t happen. I held my breath as I realized Owen was going to hit the post and there was nothing I could do to stop it… In the span of about three seconds, he hit the sign and slid forward, his knees stopping short of the sign by inches—and then he toppled over himself with his head and shoulders missing the post by inches. He immediately gave a thumbs up and then I could breathe again. As I’m sure you can imagine, the sled was quite damaged…
Our reenactment of the sled carnage (though he was actually 180° from what is pictured).
Time for a group picture!
Afterwards we came inside to warm up and play. Even though Owenlooks somewhat annoyed in this pic, he was having fun and is such a good sport.
Swinging with one of her best friends (our neighbor), Kayleigh.
Pre-dinner selfie.
Pre-dinner family selfie.
We loved that the three of them all crammed together on one side even though they didn’t need to. The boys were at the other table. 🙂
And I forgot to take a pic of the food (Slow Cooker Bacon Cheeseburger Sloppy Joes, Tangy and Creamy Macaroni Salad, and KFC’s Cole Slaw) and our group!
That’s his friend Jackson on the roof. Before this year there was no way Owen would have climbed up there.
Knocking on our neighbor’s door like a big girl.
It’s been so nice that we decided we had to have at least one day of driveway drinking while waiting for the bus. 🙂
We spent the morning with friends at one of the Burke Lake Park playgrounds. Liam will be three and Katie will be five…yet they get along like gangbusters.
This has come about over the last few days. She gets braver each time.
The usual view: Katie swinging and Kayleigh being pushed.
I know, not quite what you thought, eh? 🙂
My friend’s husband is deployed and she had a hell of a day so I took the kids over to keep her kids occupied while we had a big drink.