Easter Duet

Lovey has been working hard on a lot of her music lately! I thought it might be good for her to get some performance practice in while she's got so much material polished up and asked the minister to let us know if he needed any "filler" for upcoming services. Luckily he had an opening on Easter Sunday so Murray's parents and sister & BIL could catch the show.

As you watch her play, you can see how much she enjoys it. She started off completely comfortable in front of a church full of people! Then I saw her settle in to her piece. She closed  her eyes and smiled and had that bow flying along the whole way through Sunny Summer March. She especially enjoys having Murray accompany her on guitar. 

and since I had my camera handy, I got a shot of the kids singing during children's time! 

"Like a rock, like a rock, God is under our feet. Like a starry night sky God is over our head. Like the sun on the horizon, God is ever before. Like a river runs to ocean, our home is in God ever more."

Hope everyone had an enjoyable and blessed Easter as we did!

 

Breakfast in Bed

Talk about service with a smile! They talked all week about surprising Murray on his birthday with breakfast in bed. What to have, how to get it ready, what to put with it etc. Lovey was given a daffodil by a friend earlier in the week so she saved it for Murray's bkfast tray and "kept it alive" hidden in her night stand by shining a little LED finger light on it all week and keeping the whole thing covered by her housecoat. They made posters for him and we rushed to get the breakfast done before Lovey had to leave for her early morning violin rehearsal.

He caught on to us when he got out of bed and we wouldn't let him in the kitchen and banished him back to the bedroom but he enjoyed the delivery and ate every bite from the comfort of his own bed! The crew couldn't have been more pleased with this successful adventure!

Egg Hunt!

After a very busy & very late night, I wondered what time the little folks would be surfacing to hunt down Easter treasure! They were all awake til after 10pm after a full day of running around & so much excitement outdoors. No sleep in to be had though, everyone was ready to roll at 6:50! They headed straight to the kitchen to check for any gifts and were quite pleased to find  their buckets with goodies inside! Then they took those to the living room to hunt down all the chocolate. The Easter Bunny left a pretty good haul but they weren't long finding it all. 

It's so much fun to watch them racing around and oohing and ahhing over their discoveries! We really enjoyed having Mr. Bojangles all weekend and getting to see him work with the girls to uncover the loot. They doted on him all weekend and made sure he had his coat on when they went out, took him anywhere he wanted to go, played whatever he wanted to play. A couple of times at night he needed us (he missed his mom once & fell out of bed once) so Sweetie came to get us and let us know he needed help. Then she cuddled him and helped him settle back down to sleep so I'm not sure we were really needed at all actually!

I think Acorn's mom said it best when I was telling her about all the fun here,

"Sounds like a perfect birthday celebration. Nothing beats spending quality time with family building memories that will last a lifetime."

Forty & Fabulous!

 Murray is officially into his 5th decade! and now I'm not the only 40-something in the house, welcome to your forties hawney! We celebrated with a bonfire party in the backyard and managed not to create a national emergency although there were a couple close calls as the Christmas trees shot up in flame! We had to call in some reinforcements with power tools to get the party started and they complied quite happily! It was so nice to have Murray's whole family here! It's rare that all siblings, spouses and kids can be in the same place at the same time but it is so much fun when we do!

 When Murray was born, his dad was gifted a bottle of Crown Royal which he never touched. The bottle still had its seal intact. Or it DID until the party! Almost everyone had a sample and I was told that the aged whisky has a sweeter taste than new whisky but I wouldn't know! it all tastes like burning to me!

 and then there were some party shenanigans! Usually it's Karen that gets lifted off her feet but turnabout is fair play right?

 There was lots of fun during the party, the bonfire, roasting marshmallows, making smores, hotdogs, chips & dip, beer & pop etc. But the night kicked into high gear when Murray opened his present from Teena, Dale & Boo, fireworks!!! The kids were beyond excited and the grownups enjoyed the display too! and best of all, no injuries! Mr Bojangles had so much fun running around with the big kids that at 9pm he asked to be put to bed! That does NOT happen often!

Company's Coming!

We had the pleasure of having Murray's entire family in town for his birthday recently! We don't live near them anymore so they don't get to our house very often. Having them all here together was a huge treat!!! having everyone right in his backyard put the biggest smile on Murray's face! He's a pretty easy to please, content guy but I could tell he was extra happy this weekend! Thank you to everyone who made the trip, it was very much appreciated!

We got the extra bonus of stealing Mr. Bojangles away from his parents for the whole weekend. Leading up to the visit, we talked to him on the phone a couple of times and he was pretty pumped to have TWO sleepovers coming up (Fri AND Sat!) He even made us a dessert and served it here. As you can see, chocolate was involved and it was DELISH!

 Aunt Mandy heard about the free makeovers and beat a path to the front of the line to be next! They pulled out all the stops until even the 4 year old said "Mummy you look bootiful!"  They were disappointed that Crazy Uncle Andrew had a headache and wasn't up to having his eyeballs jabbed with eyeshadow applicators! Luckily they had supermodel Mandy to fill the gap! (I'm not sure her skin is as appreciative this week though!)