Happy Busy-ness

I can't say that this weekend was one of the busiest we've had since Baby's birth -- that title belongs to the weekend of my brother's wedding when Baby was five days old -- but we still managed to pack a lot into two days.

On Saturday, I had the privilege of witnessing my friend's beautiful wedding.  We met years ago at our parish's mothers' group, and even when the group no longer met regularly at church, our little knot of mothers has continued meeting whenever we can.  You can't keep the Holy Trinity girls down.   

So it was with great joy that I met up with these friends for a wedding of one of our own.  It was a blessing to see her at one of her happiest moments when we had already seen her at one of her saddest.
 
My friend lost her first husband in a sudden and tragic way almost five years ago.  I'll never forget leaving a two week old Sally to attend his wake, and seeing her there, so strong with her two young girls.

On Saturday, I left a five year old Sally for a much happier reason.  She was radiant as she walked down the aisle in our church with her lovely girls at her side.   I'm so thankful that the old mothers' group led us to each other and that we've stuck together long enough to be able to share in her happiness.

Today, we celebrated Sally's birthday with a tea party.  Our birthday celebrations are usually low key, mostly being a homemade cake and the birthday honoree's choice of dinner.  We're not anti-party, I'm just lazy and cheap.  

But this year, Sally finally realized that most kids invite other people to celebrate their birthdays.  I blame her dance class for that.  Little girls were bringing in treat bags left, right, and center and I finally had to explain to her that most parents were not in the habit of sending their children into class with bags of candy for the other kids unless it was to celebrate something.  

The scales practically fell from her eyes. 

She has wanted a fancy tea party for a long time, so she asked me if we could invite her entire dance class to a tea party for her birthday.  There were 25 girls in her dance class.  That's a lot of tea.

Call me a meanie, but I did not want to do a tea party for the entire dance class.  I don't get enough sleep for that these days.  I needed something much more laid back.

In the end we compromised.  We had a very small tea party for the girls in the family at a local tea room.  We drank specialty teas, ate scones and finger sandwiches, and then came home for cake.  All in all, a nice little girly party.

We also got to see my mother-in-law this weekend when she met Baby for the first time.  Since Baby is named after her, their names are the same and I get a kick out of saying them together.  I know, I know -- I need more sleep.  (But I still think it's cool.)

And now, to bed.   The kids start vacation bible school at our parish tomorrow, which means I need to be out of my pajamas looking presentable by 8:30 am.   Maybe I should get a head start and just sleep in my clothes.