Pomp and Circumstance

did you watch it? live?

i sure did. mom and i set our alarms and got up at 1am. watched the prince make his debut for the day, and then we went back to sleep for another hour until the real action started.

image via Washington Post

i loved how prince harry turned around to see Kate come up the aisle while prince william waited patiently up front for her to meet him. i love how the brothers exchanged a few words before she got there. i love how he told her she looked beautiful, and how he grinned while saying his vows.

image via thedailybeast.com

it was beautiful.

they look happy.

what a fairytale.

i hope they truly are… for a lifetime.

 

~mrs. dunbar

Easter Extravaganza 2011

Well I’m only about three days late on posting about our Easter this year.  Not too bad. We actually went to church this weekend, all five of us. For the past eight weeks Mr. Dunbar has taken the older two while I’ve stayed home with the Popeye and watched church via the Webcast.  Our church offered Saturday services this year so went on Saturday afternoon.  It was good to be back at church.
Sunday we went to my parents’ house. It truly is an extravaganza.  
Here’s the Popeye and I, he would not keep still with the hat on his head; the best part of his outfit. It was too cold to put anyone, but him, in their planned Easter outfits.
I loved Popeye’s hat. He looked just like my Grandpa.

There was some hanging out.
  
There were lots of gift… bags this year not baskets. The kids didn’t mind one bit.                
The real fun is the Easter Egg Hunt. No candy, just money for the kids. There’s always more than 100 eggs. Papa saves his change all year long to fill those eggs. I think he called himself the Easter Boss (instead of the Easter Bunny.)
But the exciting part is the egg for the adults. Usually we’re looking for the “golden egg” and we’re all competing with each other for that egg. This year, we all had to work together, since my parents are expert game makers. There were rules, typed out as Rules of Engagement for the Easter Hunt 2011. And there were riddles, lots of riddles. We had to stay together and solve each one before we could move on to the next one. And we only had 30 minutes. We started off pretty quickly.
But then the riddles got a little more difficult.

So we just laughed and laughed. And we begged for more clues.
While the kids just played with each other.  
Until finally we were lead to the orange egg this year. But it was worth it.

Hope you had a great Easter. We sure did.

~mrs. dunbar

How you doin’?

  

Ha.

Sometimes you just feel like this about life, don’t you?
Or is it just me? 
I so need the weekend to be here… now. Good food, good times, good reason.

He is Risen.

Happy Easter weekend.

And just to show you that my Popeye does smile.

Until he sees the camera of course.

~mrs. dunbar

Thoroughly Domestic

If we were meeting for coffee this morning I’d tell you that I was thoroughly domestic yesterday. I baked artisan bread from scratch. It was seriously good. This is the second time I’ve made it and I’m already starting to veer away from the actual recipe and make it my own. The boys loved it and even Mr. Dunbar commented that it was good this time. My mom used to purchase homemade bread from a lady when I was young and it was so good. I am even using the bread hook thing-a-mabob on my mixer. The mixer that has been sitting on my counter for over seven years. The mixer that Mr. Dunbar has said time and time again is a waste of space. I just kept telling him we would “grow into it.” And alas, we have arrived! We are a family of five now you know. I’ve used that thing four times in the past seven days. It was a wedding shower gift from my parents and it has been used more in the past week than the previous three years combined. ha.

Then I stayed up late (well late for us) and sewed missing buttons back onto some my husband’s shirts. Mom came over yesterday morning to take the boys to school for me and then she showed me how to do it on one of the shirts. I had asked the dry cleaners how much they charge and they wanted $5 a shirt to fix the buttons- it was one button per shirt.  I did three buttons. That’s $15 bucks I just saved or in other terms; two trips to Starbucks for the boys and I or a shirt from Target or a couple bottles of wine or, burgers from our favorite hamburger place.

Mr. Dunbar went to work on Sunday night on a sort of emergency call. There was a situation that he felt he had to be present to handle. We texted a few times back and forth after he left and one of his messages said, “Thanks for picking up my slack.” After thinking about this for a few minutes I wanted to tell him, Slack?  What slack? Slack is not being the sole provider for a family of five. Slack is not being a great department Director who is the kind of boss that doesn’t expect any of his employees to do something he wouldn’t do himself. Slack is not demonstrating for your sons a work ethic that shows when a job needs to get done, you do it. Slack is not hugging each of them and telling them you love them and that you’re proud of them before you walk out the door. Slackers don’t do those things, Hero Husbands/Dads do!~ (Love you, Mr. Dunbar.)

 

Well now that I’ve already had my coffee for the day and I saved my family $15 I think I’m off to Target to get myself something.

Have a great day.

~mrs. dunbar

Colored Eggs

Each year the coloring of eggs is the big thing at The Dunbar’s. This year was especially nice since the day was warm enough for egg coloring and swimming.   Now, this egg coloring thing has been a tradition at the Dunbar’s since Mr. Dunbar and his cousins were Littles. They had an even mix of boys and girls and I was told the dyeing process would take an hour or so because the girls would take their time and choose their colors and decorate each egg perfectly. Well, since we only have boys this process was completed in all of ten minutes.       

These hands, oh these hands, are always so messy.

The most exciting part of this egg process is not the coloring, but the hiding and finding.

   

Boys with board shorts and baskets, now that is a Life Made Lovely.

~mrs. dunbar