Party Weekend

The party continued on Saturday with 15 people for dinner- unplanned- and another showed up for dessert and music. This time I got to speak Spanish. I was embarrassed to have no cookies in the house, so threw together some no bakes. Unfortunately, I can't find my cookbooks yet, so I had to tweak an internet recipe, but it turned out.
Then Sunday was quieter- a friend and his son came by and we served tea and bsisa with pomegrante.
I need another weekend to recover from this one, but alas, it is straight into the fray with grading and exam preps.

Last Month in Pictures (May)

Sami got a new high chair.

 
 And he seems to like it.

Ali had a Pokemon Birthday party. There were water balloons involved!

And he got lots of Pokemon cards- a newish obsession.

They had to melt little blocks of ice to free their Pokemon characters. I froze them in muffin tins in my friend's freezer, since mine wasn't big enough.

Someone (Ali!) broke a window pane in our bedroom while trying to throw a softball (why do they call them that?) over the roof. It was a mess, and is currently covered in cardboard.

We had brownies on Ali's actual birthday, at his request.

He opened presents while Sami watched me.

Ali's good friend got the Firebird, which he traded with her.

Two Ali's trying to free their Pokemon. Dropping the ice blocks was very effective.

These photographs are not in order somehow- oh well. The Pokemon party was quite a success. I limited it to 7 guests, and one didn't show. They made Pokemon badges, traded cards (they got some when they came in), and melted their Pokemon. We tried a water balloon contest- the one where you toss it to a partner and keep moving back. Joy and I, who demonstrated, did really well, backing up across almost the entire yard. Almost everyone else dropped it on the first toss!

Then the kids just threw water balloons at each other. It was a hot day. And we played a version of freeze tag. I gave out prizes for various things- everyone got one. It was a very relaxed party. They came in side and had cupcakes and cheetos, and Ali opened all of his presents, most of them Pokemon related. That's why he has such a huge pile of cards now.
The goodie bags were little bouncy balls, m&m's, Pokemon cards, and little figures- one that they thawed, and one that was on their cupcake.

I tried to post these about a month ago, but had some trouble and abandoned the post. I just found it in drafts, so am publishing it now, rather belatedly. Now it's time to write about June since July is already on its way!

Holiday Weekend

Today started with breakfast in bed. Well, it started with Leila telling me I was getting breakfast in bed, but I had to get up and make my own coffee, of course, and wash the blueberries. But still, breakfast in bed brought by someone else is never to be sneezed at.
Now I've given Leila the task of collecting and emptying the cups from last night's party. She's pouring all the liquid into one cup an then emptying that into the plants in the garden. She deosn't want to just pour it down the sink- that's wasteful.
And speaking of the party last night- it was lots of fun. Every once in a while I get the urge to just invite a huge number of people over and see how they fit- both in the house and with each other. I think everyone had a good time. The kids played well together- someone stepped on Leila's face at one point, but I told them they shouldn't be walking on the bed anyway. The grownups talked well together- I think everyone connected with someone else, and I enjoyed getting to see and socialize with people that I don't often get to sit down and talk with. About 26 people came, including an 8-month-old baby with the cutest stick-straight-up pigtails.
(Leila is having recycle/waste crisis as she cleans up. She found a napkin that didn't look very used and wanted us to reuse it. I didn't think we should, so she wants to recycle it. And now she came in to tell me that when we pick someone up from somewhere in the car, if it's more than 20 minutes we need to turn the car off.)
I made two huge pots of soup- one chicken, veggie and rice, and the other black bean for the vegetarians. There should be enough for lunch today- and maybe at work tomorrow- but that's all that's left. I also made a loaf of whole wheat bread in the machine and some Kesra- Morroccan bread, which our Morroccan friend approved. Luckily I bought some too because we demolished most of it. Guests rounded out the meal with brownies, pie, veggies, and some delicious appetizers from my neighbor. All in all it was quite a success.
This whole weekend has been lots of social fun. Saturday night a friend came by for dinner and then I went to some art gallery opening with another friend. The first show was my prof from last summer and the gallery-Barry Whistler- was choc full of professors, students, and others. We spent a lot of time talking. Then we went down to a group show at 500X where we met up with some friends. The best part of the evening was them announcing she's pregnant. Upstairs we ran into some other friends who announced they had gotten married last weekend.
We then were supposed to go off to Samar, but the table wait was 2 hours so we headed over to Stephan Pyles for snacks and desert. All in all, a fun night.
(Should I feel guilty that I'm still in bed and my little daughter is cleaning up? Nah. She's enjoying herself.)