BBQ Birthday & Baby Blessing

This last weekend was full of fun adventures. It included Brett's B-day BBQ and Breckin's Baby Blessing. And I just happened to bake a blackout cake. Apparently we like to do all of the "B" things in one weekend.

Friday started with me going to work where I hung out with kids all morning. I really do love my job. After I got off around 1:30 I headed home and then to the store. I was in search of chocolate, karo syrup, strawberries, and candles. After I had the supplies I headed home to bake a Brooklyn Chocolate Blackout Cake from scratch. For you see, it was Brett's birthday party that night and she had requested chocolate cake for dessert. I usually get put in charge of making dessert at these things because people know that I enjoy it and that I usually end up going all out. Hence the cake from scratch. After 2 1/2 hours of melting, mixing, stirring, chilling, spreading, baking, cutting and layering I ended up with a cake that looked like this

Once the cake was ready I went and packed my bag, wrapped a gift, and headed up to Wendi and Ben's house for the party, praying the whole drive that the cake wouldn't melt or slide off the platter. Luckily my prayers were answered and me and the cake arrived safe and sound and just in time. I ran into the house with all my gear and set about helping Wendi get things ready. We prepared the food, ironed a sheet for the movie screen, cleaned off the tables and all the while watched baby Breckin.

Somewhere in the middle of this friends started showing up. When everyone had arrived and all was ready to go we set Ben to work barbecuing hamburgers for us. He is such a good sport to not only hang out with all of us girls but cook for us as well. And he is a pretty good cook. The evening followed with us all gathered around the table eating, talking, and most of all laughing. Whenever we are all together it seems that we can just sit and laugh for hours on ends. We ate our hamburgers, had cake and ice cream, and cleaned up things and got ready for the movie.

We hung a white sheet on the back of the house and then set up a projector and chairs around it in the yard. Ben was even smart enough to set up mosquito sticks so we wouldn't get eaten alive. We ended up watching What Happens in Vegas. It is a funny show and we all laughed our way through it. Once it was over we cleaned up, said goodbye to Bree, and then went inside to figure out where the rest of us were going to sleep since we had all decided to sleepover for the baby blessing the next day. Once sleeping arrangements had been made we all continued to sit around and laugh into the early hours of the morning. We finally said goodnight and went to bed sometime in the morning hours.

The next day started bright and early with the sun shinning through the windows. It is the perfect way to wake up if you ask me. The morning proceeded with making chicken salad, getting ready ourselves, setting up canapes, tables, and chairs, making the chicken salad sandwiches, cutting up brownies, getting baby Breckin ready, and making lemonade. all of this was quite the adventure, but fun at the same time.

Family started arriving at noon and soon all of us were crammed into the house. Ben gathered the worthy priesthood holders around him and Breckin and then proceeded to give his first son his first blessing. It always amazes me to be a part of things of this magnitude. They are such simple things that come with the greatest power and significance. It is such a great feeling to know that men here on earth are worthy and able to hold and use the priesthood power of God. There was such a great feeling of peace and joy as Ben blessed his son. I don't remember all that he said but I remember the feeling that came with his words and the power that was with them

After the blessing we all headed out to the yard to eat some great food. It is times like this when I am glad I have a big family. It means lots of good food when we all gather together. We had chicken salad sandwiches, brownies, potato salad, watermelon, grapes, bow tie pasta salad, regular pasta salad, peanut butter cookies, cake cookies, chips, cookies bars, and lemonade. It was a great afternoon with great people. And the clean-up wasn't bad at all with many helping hands to do it. And overall, it was a great way to spend the weekend. What better way is there then to spend it with people you love.