Baby Tao, Shower for Jonathan

Thanks to the Westside Bible Study Ladies for the fabulous shower of love and gifts for Baby Jonathan. Gwen and Debera greeted the guests as they arrived at Devanee's house.

Lauren gave a devotional out of Deuteronomy followed by a delicious brunch of quiches made by the ladies and some gorgeous salads. One of my favorites Asian salad(thanks pioneer woman)was there, of course made by our salad specialist, Gwen.
Two of my previous neighbors came, Eagle and Diane. I am so honored they were able to be there. Cynthia couldn't come, but sent her gift ahead. The group gifted me with a car seat and a pack and play, wow, we are so ready for Jonathan to try them out.
I love this double mother/daughter duo picture, my WWW tea kitchen buddies(Sue and Karine and their precious daughters, Commie and Allie).Monique and Desiree handled the "stupid shower games" as I like to fondly refer to the games loved by women worldwide played at bridal and baby showers. They kept their games tame with blindly trying to pull out tiny blue pacifiers from a bowl of rice. Kristina won with 29, total. The second game, was to guess using a piece of plastic measuring tape how large I am around. Stacey won that game. Sandra, my nursery enthusiastic nursery supervisor trainer, traveled down for the shower with her hubby, John.Helen and Thelma have been my dear friends from my very first GCC activity at Titus Tuesday, my third week in California.Karen, my ever patient WWW kitchen trainer, demos the photiphic way to eat a strawberry. She and Eagle debated who was older and wiser.

Sisters, nothing sweeter

Sisters make everything sweeter.

I am delighted to have my sisters for a weekend. We laugh and laugh and laugh. My sisters are quick witted and nothing is sacred from the teasing wit of family. When they arrived we went to have our toes done, grabbed Mexican food for lunch and then we hit the fashion district.

The fashion district is fabulous!
I had never even been there before. Isn't that a shame? They can't wait to come again to get more bargains. My sisters are fashion gurus. If you could see their closet you would drool. They have a wall of hats and purses. They have over 100 pair of shoes. The shirts are arranged in an amazing array of colors, textures, and styles. And the jewelry department is overwelming. Their personal styles are quite different, but Keni loves putting together outfits. Cathy always looks like a million bucks and has since she was a teenager, and maybe before.Keni is modeling her new purse.


The Avery branch found tiny treasures for Baby Jonathan. When Steve and I opened them, we were finally struck with the realization that we will soon have a little guy in our family, for real. Steve really loved the little shoes. He loves shoes, probably his son will too. The family bought baby Tao a Travel system including a carseat and stroller.
Thankfully sister Keni loves to assemble everything. She had a great time putting together everything. Thank you so much, sister.

Saturday night found us out for Steve's hometown restaurant. We had his favorites, steamed fish, mushroom/cucumer salad, Northern bean noodle salad, Tofu and meatball soup.

Sunday morning we dropped them off at LAX. We are so blessed to have family.

Lauren and I

Lauren and I each created a recipe to split with the other to swap. I made Anna Sander's American Cassarole which I love and Steve tolerated (too much cheese). Which made 2 9x13 pan servings. I served one and froze the other. We are not at the "cook for a month" level like Adrienne, but we are learning.

Eagle also came over bearing baby gifts and she stayed for dinner too. Eagle is such a practical gift giver! She got us little towels and washclothes, lotion, and cleaning things. Thanks Eagle, you are so thoughtful!

Lauren made stuffed pork chops without stuffing them, the stuffing goes on the bottom. I packaged them into 3 meals, two in the freezer. So I am stocking up and making my life easier!

Tomorrow my sisters are flying in for the babyshower. We are getting our feet done.

Getty Villa

Steve and I took a short trip back in time to the Getty Villa located in Malibu. It was restive and lovely. We ate our lunch at the side of the road watching the beach.

An obnoxious seagull was a bit offended at our "gull" of eating in his territory without feeding him and his people. They do seem to like mac and cheese and P&J sandwiches.

Christine's Bridal Shower

I am giving Christine points for being the most effecient bridal shower gift opener ever. She was great! I was so impressed with her speed and gracious acceptance of all kinds of neat gifts. I love Bed Bath and Beyond. What a fun place. I personally did not care for everyone staring at me as I opened all those things at my shower.

We got her an icecream machine, and someone else got her sprinkles, and dessert cups that will compliment that nicely.

They arranged tons of bridal games of which I have never been fond, but many people are enamored of them. The MC also gave out plenty of prizes. They had a book to write advice for the bride and also a place to submit recipes. I wish the recipe card might have been a bit larger since I felt obligated to submit a simple recipe with few ingredients, but one that Steve and I both like. Baked Tofu cubes!

I didn't hear the story of their initial meeting or engagement but perhaps soon. They also had teams design "bridal dresses" out of toilet paper and Christine selected the one she liked the best. Our team did not win, but it was fun to see people's creativity!

I also got to meet Gwen's grandson. He is a precious little 3 month old fella with charming dimples and an interesting eye color, perhaps Hazel, a blueish, grayish, greenish color. Gwen says that he has Glenn's coloring.

One of the neatest gifts, I say, in my humble opinion was a picture frame from Christine's aunt. The picture on the left side was Glenn and Gwen's wedding picture and then on the right was Christine's parents wedding picture. Christine thought it was a joke that her aunt had played on her, until her aunt reminded her that the other picture was Glenn and Gwen. Then she really looked at it. Her wedding pic is supposed to go into the middle spot. I believe she really appreciated it! We passed it around. I was so surprised that Gwen and Adrienne look so much a like. It is a startling resemblance.

And Coffee Grounds

I just love sharing my new and improved ways of creating messes. I was bringing my coffee pot home last evening from Women Walking Wisely. I realized as I was putting it into my backseat that I had forgetten to empty the grounds but I was too tired and lazy to do something about it. I carefully propped it up in the seat and soon was on my way home down The 405. In my usual zipping way of driving, I soon smelled coffee which to me is a pleasant, comforting smell. Good thing I think that, since when I got home, I discovered to my shame the coffee pot on its side and grounds strewn thither and yon across the back seat and floor. Now how do you explain that to your gentle and understanding husband? Is there any reason for such a thing to happen? I couldn't think of one. Praise God that I have been learning about anger, frustration, and irritation. I was able to thank Him for the incident and be thankful that I hadn't left any coffee in the pot. =-)

Steve just shook his head sadly and said, "I don't even know what to say." You just got to love that guy!

and Pizza

Wow! Go Pampered Chef. Today I created Fruit Pizza by combining two PC recipes. Yummy! I used bananas, strawberries, kiwis, and cuties with a sprinkling of shaved hershey bar and toasted coconut. The crust was sugar cookie with a peanutbutter/creamcheese covering. Looks fab! Love those simple pampered chef recipes.