Month: July 2013

A Tea Party for a Prince

I had promised the children that we’d have a tea party to celebrate the birth of Baby Cambridge (the future King George), but since Ryan was out-of-town last week, we decided to wait until he could join us for our celebration!

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I didn’t have as cohesive of a theme as usual…I threw in a little blue (for the baby boy), with the table runner, some Ghirardelli chocolates from Ryan’s trip, and the variety of tea (Bigelow English Teatime, in a lovely blue box), but I didn’t do anything with blue foods.

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For the most part, we just enjoyed some of our favorite tea party foods, with a new item thrown in (that was so popular, it will definitely become part of the permanent collection!)…an orange poppy-seed cake!

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We had our standard scones:

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And cucumber sandwiches:

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We had coronation chicken for dinner last night, so we enjoyed finger sandwiches made from the leftovers:

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Dried apricots and Cotswold cheese from England:

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Thumbprint cookies and shortbread:

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And, of course, finger jello:

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It was a fun way to celebrate the birth of the future King of England!

Tasty Tuesday–National Cheesecake Day

In honor of “National Cheesecake Day,” here are a few of my favorite cheesecake recipes!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Strawberry Margarita Cheesecake (possibly my very favorite!)

Bailey’s Irish Cream Cheesecake

Mint Oreo Cheesecake

Quote of the Day

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again. William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Bibelot

Bibelot–a small object of curiosity, beauty, or rarity.

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“The deep red color of the bibelot recalls the blood of Christ that in Holy Baptism cleanses you from all sin.
The fruit of the Spirit stamped on the bibelot reminds you of Baptism’s ongoing fruit in your life as the Holy Spirit keeps you united to your Lord in living faith.
Through the ongoing gift of Baptism, God continues to pour out forgiveness and new life for you. Rejoice!”

Until today, I had never heard the word “bibelot.” These particular stones are from the font that was at the LCMS convention, and are inscribed with different fruit of the Spirit. I never passed by the font when I was there, so I had no idea these were in it, and even if I had seen them, I wouldn’t have known what they were! A friend from church was kind enough to pick up a few of them for us on the last day of the convention, and I think they look very nice surrounding the Paschal candle in our school room!

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The Gateway Arch

On Monday, after we visited the LCMS convention, the children and I walked down to the Arch. Even though I’ve lived here for over 12 years now, I’d never been closer to the Arch than driving past it on the interstate!

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It was amazing to see in person!

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I thought that the lights were especially interesting:

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It’s a long way up!

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We even went inside. I didn’t have the time or money for the tram ride to the top, but we did walk through the museum:

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After we were done at the Arch, we walked around the Landing for a bit, just to see the river and all of the activity:

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Somebody got a little sleepy walking around:

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One last glimpse of the Arch before boarding the train:

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At the Park

Yesterday we visited a new playground–Discovery Playground at Jaycee Park in St. Charles, MO. This is one of the coolest parks I’ve ever seen. It’s designed for children of all abilities, and has cool elements like roller slides, musical play, adaptive swings, and is fully accessible. While we don’t require accessibility features, having a child with special needs has made me appreciate parks designed to allow all kinds of children to enjoy themselves! There were also other features (like the rope merry-go-round and saucer swing), that I’ve never seen before, and were just really cool to watch the children explore!

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2013 LCMS Convention–“Baptized for this Moment”

I’ve been down at the LCMS convention a few times over the course of the last several days, and I took some pictures, both when I was volunteering, and when I took the children to see what it was all about.

The convention is being held at America’s Center (which is attached to the Edwards Jones Dome),  in downtown St. Louis. I had never been there before…the building is huge!

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Lots of signage in and around the building announcing the convention:

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The registration area (the calm before the storm!):

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Lots of Lutherans!

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It was a little strange worshipping in a convention center for the Opening Service:

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But it was wonderful seeing so many pastors vested for the service!

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KFUO has been broadcasting live from the convention:

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I brought the children with a few specific things in mind that I wanted them to see. We peeked inside halls one and two, where all of the work is being done:

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We spent a lot of time in the exhibit hall:

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The CPH “table” was the overwhelming favorite, partly because it was the biggest one there, and partly because they all remembered that Daddy used to work there!

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The children were also excited to get to write notes of encouragement to missionaries:

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They also liked seeing the banners that were made by school children to decorate the main convention center hall:

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Of course, I had to take a pictures of all of the children there!

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When we got home, we all put on our temporary tattoos:

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I’m so glad that the convention was in St. Louis this year, so that the children could see their church body at work!