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A few weekends ago, our new baby Cougar was blessed at church. To attend the event and celebrate with us, my parents and Matt’s parents, as well as my grandma, stayed at our house. That is right, all under the same roof! My in-laws stayed in our guest room, all the girls stayed in our youngest daughter’s room, my parents stayed in our twins’ room, and my grandma stayed in the nursery since Cougar is still with us. It was a full house!
Planning is fun for me, but feeding a crowd might be almost as fun. It was a short weekend, people arrived Friday night and left Monday. Saturday was a flexible day with a few casual family activities, but Sunday was all about Brian being blessed at church. When I prepared the menu for the weekend, I started with the brunch menu. I considered brunch the most important meal of the weekend.
After I had the menu put together, I posted it in an easy-to-see place in my kitchen to help answer everyone’s questions and keep people excited about what was coming up. We had a household with both sets of grandparents and my grandma! Also, when guests are willing to help (I couldn’t stop my mom from helping if I tried), they can see clearly what kind of things need to be done and feel helpful. It was great, because I had a new baby to manage while managing a house full of guests.
When I created the menu, I didn’t think about how I might show it on my blog, so I wrote it with red pen because that was handy at the time. (Sorry if you can’t read it.)
Brunch was so yummy! A very nice friend of mine offered to help and brought the most delicious banana bread I’ve ever tasted. As for everything else, I tried to create what I think is a tasty and balanced menu:
After the meal was over, we went on to the even greater stress of family pictures. (If you’ve ever orchestrated group pictures, you know what I mean!)
Baby girl was done being left out of any picture, so she scooted Cougar over and made herself a space. These two are developing a special bond. I guess that happens when your two other siblings have the iron-clad bond of being identical twins.
The blessing for Cougar was beautifully given by my husband, Matt, during our church service in the afternoon. By the time the blessing was done, we had already had brunch and taken pictures, so the rest of the day could be … restful!
Celebrating a new member of the family is the best kind of celebration. Today was no exception.
From my home to yours,
Mary
the children are so pretty!!! Thanks for the menu’s idea 🙂