Retro Baseball Birthday Party

As it usually goes with parties there weren't many pictures taken, but I'll share what I did manage to get and give a little rundown of the details...

Invites

Food: 
regular ballpark fodder- hotdogs, garlic fries, popcorn, peanuts, watermelon, veggies & cupcakes

Games:
Musical Bases, Individual Baseball piñatas (inspired by these), a modified version of the old ball game, and a super simple ball toss

Favors
Envelopes with old time-y candy, sunflower seeds,and a pack of vintage (if you consider 1991 vintage) baseball cards

All in all I think it went over well - some minor cupcake drama had me in a tizzy last night but icing covers a multitude of sins and now we have moved on to building new lego sets and untwisting those annoying packaging twist ties.  6 years gone and commemorated just like that...

Six

These pants must have got the memo that another year has passed.

Ephram is 6! 

Game Day

And just like that it's here. 

Easter was...

...eating

...hitting

...showering (first time!)

...playing

...iPad-ing

...reading (our no tv lifestyle may have been a shock to the old mans system)

...washing (thanks to ill timed dishwasher drama)

...BBQ-ing (no turkey or ham this year)

...(early) celebrating

...building

...hunting

...bowl licking

...watching (playoffs online) and lounging

...consuming

and taking it all in.

Cake Pops

Add this post to the bajillions of blog posts out there devoted to cake pops. 


Ephram has to take a special birthday snack to school tomorrow and months ago he informed me that everybody brings cupcakes. So those were out. I had in mind to make these but the boy had other plans. Plans he said he'd help with.  


So we baked, crumbled, mixed, rolled, poked and dipped little by little over the last few days and...

ta-da! 60 little cake pops ready and waiting. 

It's no Rod Stewart...

Wintersleep - Broken Arrow, Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame 2011

The Scene...

... around these parts at 8:52 AM on a(nother) snowy morning. 

thrifting//the sideboard

We've been looking for one of these forever. 
Sareh is one happy camper tonight. 

Eventually a little sanding and a little lot of staining but for now just loads more storage and the lovely feeling of another thrifting hurdle conquered. 

Time

I'm struck sometimes by the passing of time. How unforgiving it is - one minute the things are the way they've always been and the next minute everything has irrevocably changed and it's almost like you can't even remember what used to be so familiar. 


Time is wonderfully ruthless. 


My grandma used to have this tiny TV perched on the corner of her countertop at my mom's childhood home. 
I haven't thought of it in years and years. 
My memories of my granparents house usually consist of salmon sandwiches and salads with vinegary homemade dressing stored in old mustard containers, the huge freezer full of Revels and lemonade popsicles, pink walls, the mornings leftover toast on a plate waiting for someone to need a snack, a bowl of stale old dutch chips, opening handmade Christmas gifts (those quilts are still my favorite and my kids use the dresser now), that old patio umbrella, Brandy's big pen in the back, clothes drying on the line, the sink in the porch and the old wood highchair that sat back there too. Oh and the metal stool... 


But the TV I had forgot about. Until today. When our dishwasher broke and I was forced to wash it's contents by hand. The baby was napping, the boy was at school, and the girl had busied herself elsewhere so I brought the computer into the kitchen with me to catch up on some old seasons of Project Runway. And it came back to me.


Soaps were the order of the day on that old tv and I used to love watching the work that happened in that kitchen on lazy (for me, that is) summer afternoons while All My Children played. On this one particular day my Grandma and Grandpa were making doughnuts in their electric frying pan. My grandpa moved faster than he does now and my grandma's hair wasn't nearly so white. I can see brief flashes of the pictures that used to sit on the shelves. My mom was there and they were talking but I don't remember what their conversation was about. Tad was on the the screen... 


It all used to be so normal to me. So everyday. 
And then time passed and to reflect on it now it feels surreal to think it was even real life. 


My grandparents are still here but everything is different. Time has been gentle on my grandpa, and for a man in his 90's, he is well. Time has been exceptionally cruel for my grandma though and now I watch as my mom and aunt struggle to care for her. Some is age and some is unfortunate events that have happened but either way time has passed and she is a long way from those doughnut making days. And it's almost unbearably sad to think of the way things used to be and how easily forgotten it has all become.  


A quick google search tells me that Tad is still wooing the ladies of Pine Valley. 


Time there in that old TV has almost stood still but not here. 
Here it soldiers on.

A blessing and a curse.

Some lovely light.

There's snow in the forecast.

Again. 

But until it hits the ground we're taking advantage of the blue skies and brown earth by running around with bare arms and bubbles. 

Why the Bumbo isn't a good babysitter...