Party time! This time we celebrate Mr. Gurglebutt who has, miraculously and with no help from his older brother, survived his first year. As with Boogermonkey’s parties, the festivities will be held at my mother’s house. As with Boogermonkey’s parties, your presence is your present.
And here’s a full-screen version, if you have a hard time reading that one.
Party time!
(click for big)
If you were at Andy’s 2nd birthday party, it’s at the same place (my mom’s house). If you’re new and need directions, let me know. It’s super easy to get there, but I don’t want to publish my mom’s address on the intertubes. E-mail jen[at]gonzopants[dot]com to RSVP so I know how many cupcakes to make 
Also: in lieu of gifts, please make a donation to Toys for Tots or a similar organization.
Before I start with the recap of the awesome wedding we went to on Sunday, I have to share these pictures of Boogermonkey with y’all.
A few mornings ago, he was trying to put on my skirt. Of course, his chest is much smaller than my waist, so it kept falling down. I grabbed a chip clip from the fridge & pinned it in the back.
This is a pretty good visual representation of my older child’s personality
And then, last night, he decided he wanted to play dress up. With my clothes. Isn’t he pretty? I think pink is a good color for him. Also: that shawl? I MADE THAT! Swallowtail, by Evelyn Clark, Interweave 200x. Yes, I will add it to Ravelry, as soon as I get better pictures of it
OK, so now on to the wedding.
GORGEOUS wedding. Outdoors, on the one bearable day at the end of a miserable heat wave. A bit muggy, but muggy & 80 is a whole hell of a lot better than muggy & 95+ like it had been for a few days previous or muggy & raining like it was the night before & the night after. Llama & I went to college with Vaughn, he & Llama were resident assistants together sophomore year and continued hanging out with a core group of guys, playing video games like counterstrike (I hate that fucking game. 30+ guys playing it at full volume in one dorm with all their doors open: great way to make your girlfriend feel like she’s sleeping in a goddamned war zone). Vaughn is now a cop & about 1/3 of the guys are married, but we’re the only couple with kids so far. Booger & Gurglebutt stayed with LlamaMama for a few hours, which was nice because then I could have champagne without repeating “no honey that’s a grownup drink” a kajillion times. Hello, open bar. The Jen of the past would have been falling over, but the saner, happier, more mature Jen of now had a respectable two glasses.
Enough of that! Onto the pictures. Full set here. Any picture without Llama in it was taken by Llama.
Vows. The priest was awesome. Funny, irreverent, English, acknowledged that not all of us in attendance believed in zombies Jesus.
KISSING!
Husband & wife. Major bonus points for (a) not playing Canon in D, (b) not reading 1 Corinthians (they used Shakespeare instead), (c) not having a “unity candle.”
Dancing. There was a great dip at the end, but Llama had turned away at the wrong moment & didn’t capture it. They were so cute during this dance, though.
CAKE! The best part of all weddings, IMO.
Garter search. He spent quite a bit of time up that dress, lawl. There were little handcuffs on the garter, because he’s a cop.
Guys. Missing: Nick. Not sure where he is, no one really knows why he wasn’t there. The only time we see him is at weddings, and I was sad. Nick, honey, if you read my blog: CALL US. WE MISS YOU.
Off to the honeymoon! Disneyworld for a week.
My birthday is coming! In honor of this awesome, once-a-year event, I’m having a party in 3 parts.
Part 1: the movie
August 22, 8 p.m., the lawn outside Beaverton Public Library. Come watch Goonies with us! For free! More details about the movies in the park program here.
Part 2: the party
August 23, 3 p.m., my place. Cupcakes, finger sandwiches, (iced) tea, crumpets with clotted cream & lemon curd, and a dip in the pool. That’s right folks, I’m having a tea party! Pointy hats & side ponytails optional, kids welcome, BYOB.
Part 3: the game
August 24, 2 p.m., PGE Park. Minor league baseball, concession stand food, knitters. $10 tickets available here, user: stitch, password: pitch.
RSVP by e-mail: jen[at]gonzopants[dot]com or call my cell if you have the number. This is an open invitation, esp. open to folks I haven’t seen in a while or only know via ravelry. Please stay home if your plan is to kill me or my kids.
We had Booger’s party tonight, and general consensus is it was a good time. Two lasagnes, a salad, Mom’s famous deviled eggs, and pumpkin cupcakes. Low-key yet loud (in a good way), friends, family, etc. Tonya took a ton of pictures, because she’s like that, so when she uploads them to her flickr I’ll link that here. I took a few (great group shots of the 3 boys), but you’ll have to wait for those. Booger loves Mom’s fish, and he had a great time showing David & Otto the aquarium. Tonight as I was putting him to bed he said, “We don’t eat the fish in the water. We don’t eat Lina’s fish in the water.” He figured that out on his own, the monkey. Tomorrow we head back up to Portland, and we’ll eat Thanksgiving dinner at Llamamama’s fiancé’s sister’s house. No cooking, no cleaning, fan TAS tic.
And now I’ll try to get this to post in the 90 seconds of modem time I get with Llama’s phone.
Today is Ash Wednesday and so begins Lent. I’m not a religious person, I’m not anywhere near Catholic (dated one once. That was an unmitigated disaster at best), but we were talking about sacrifice last night at stitch & bitch and the subject came up of what we give up during Lent in order to become closer to god or something else. And while a lot of us make sacrifices every day (one gal in my S&B group is a mom of three with a sensitive system. The foods, things, sleep, showering she gives up every day makes Lent seem pretty pale), I like the idea of using that sacrifice to become closer to something that you hold dear, be it god or something else. So I got to thinking about Seattle and how Llamaface & I have decided to move there when grad school is done (sorry to spring that on some of you, but there it is), and how much stuff we have and how much of it I really don’t want to move and how little we really need and how much money we could save/not spend if for 40 days we only bought essential consumables (food, toiletries) and also got rid of excess stuff during those 40 days. I mentioned the George Foreman grill that I can’t stand and one of the S&B gals was interested, and in thinking about that this morning, I thought “why not have a “get it out of my house” Lent party?” So here’s the deets:
THE LLAMAFACE/SHOEBOXMAMA/BOOGERMONKEY LENT PARTY
MAMA’S DONE WITH GRAD SCHOOL AND WE DON’T WANT TO LOAD THIS STUFF IN A U-HAUL
Yeah, I could freecycle all of it, but that isn’t as much fun as throwing a party. Whatever doesn’t get taken will be freecycled, but I figure y’all are more fun anyway.
And for your patience through that, here’s a picture
Llamaface had Boogermonkey hold his lunch banana on the drive to work. Booger figured out how to open it, smart monkey that he is.