Birthday Weekend

We got the awesome opportunity to host my beloved cousin, Jes, and his girlfriend, Candyn, this past weekend.  We have been hounding them about coming to stay with us for quite some time now.  These two folks are just absolute gems.  Jes and I go way back... he's more like a little brother than a cousin.  My fellow ninja turtle, shall we say, back in tha good 'ol days.  And Candyn's smile says it all... she is just so full of fun and life.  And we continually find things in each other that are so alike.  So needless to say, we were so excited for their visit.

...And when your hubs is a dentist, there's nothing like a few cavities and some serious wisdom tooth pain to getchyour cousin's boot-ay over to your place pronto :D.

Love these two

Dr. Pain about to do his work

Jes is ready.  And I think pretty doped up.

On the tail end of their visit, we celebrated Matthew's turning 28 with some of our friends from Army Dentac and some fixin's from yours truly.  I confess I had a 'Martha' kinda day when prepping while William was not-so-independent and tugging at me while I navigated prepping things  ...And I don't mean Martha Stewart.

But by the time friends came through the door, it was like something clicked and I was wondering why I was getting so stressed out about the preparations when all that I was really wanting was to surround my hubs with love and community on his special day.  I'm so glad God put that story about Martha and Mary in His Word to remind us where our focus should be.  If you're not familiar with this story, read here. 

Sidenote: We were having so much fun enjoying our friends that all we have are some lame pics of the food after it was demolished.  But we did get one of the birthday boy!

I wish I would've taken a pic before food got eaten... oh well!  We had a meat lasagna, meatless veggie lasagna for lent-ers, and yummy spinach dip with veggies in baguettes

Chocolate cake balls, tooth-shaped candies, and Matthew's favorite... homemade cheesecake with blueberry topping

The beverages and my swanky new beverage dispenser for summertime

Singing happy birthday.  Love you hon!