Love Birds

Today is our four year wedding anniversary.  No big plans really.  Just peppering the day with reminiscent moments and nostalgic treats.  We are hoping to ship off Luke and Augustine for a good portion of the weekend so that we can do some major painting (basically the whole main floor of the house).  I might be starting the "nesting" phase already or it's obvious that even though painting isn't exactly easy with two little boys running around, it won't get easier by throwing a third child into the mix!  I'm on a bit of a roll today in finally getting some blogs published.  Hopefully there will be more coming soon and I don't overwhelm the readers.  It would, however, be lovely to hear from you out there.  Here's the agenda for this post. I'm most particularly interested in any feedback you have to offer on part "D".

A. Some photos from the wedding
B. Tribute to other lovebirds
C. Mothers' Day
D. Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds

                             A.

 vows and thereabouts

Exiting Our Lady of Perpetual Help Chapel as Mr. & Mrs.

Awwwwwwww

Brides and Bridegrooms

May 15th is quite the popular day.  Birthday shout out to our guests Scott and Christy and Happy Anniversary to Bill and Helen and Ed and Janet!

Forever Starts Today (Amen. Alleluia!)  The song Pete wrote for us to dance our "first dance".  It was wonderful yet awkward since it was 7 minutes long.  I was going to try and post the MP3 for you all but haven't figured it out yet.

Newlyweds and Oldlyweds

B. Pete and I feel especially blessed because our parents are still married and only married once. My parents celebrated their 32nd anniversary on March 20th and Pete and his siblings organized a big shindig for their parents' 45th anniversary who got married on April 26th.  We started the celebration at 11am Mass at Little Flower Parish where Pete grew up and his parents still attend.  We packed a "picnic" lunch then went to the Akron Rubber Ducks baseball game.  Then we all went to Matt and Debbie's for dinner, cake, and hanging out.  The Mr. and Mrs. we were honoring knew of the festivities but didn't realize the extent of the guest list.  Siblings and friends traveled from afar to join in the fun.  Thank you to everyone that helped honor Matt and Cathy and their commitment to God, the sacrament of marriage, and their family.

Our own party spot in section 1/2

The boys meet the duck

Good food.  Good company.  Good times!

The happy couple displaying the commemorative framed "card" and hopefully viewing this blog from their new laptop computer ;-)

C.  As a combined celebration of my mother-in-law's birthday and Mothers' Day.  We invited Grandma and Grandpa Schafer over for dinner last Friday.  We had nutty stuffed mushrooms, homemade onion breadsticks, a tossed salad, and baked ziti. In lieu of a birthday cake I made a strawberry rhubarb pie, which just so happens to be both mine and my mother-in-law's favorite.  Unfortunately, I have not had much luck with my strawberry-rhubarb pies "setting up" in the past.  They still taste delightful, if you ask me, but they are a mess to serve.  Although I had a HORRIBLE Thursday, the day before the dinner party, the pie seemed to be the only bright spot in the day.  It was a lovely sight coming out of the oven and I wish I would have taken a picture once it was sliced displaying a perfect cross-section devoid of drips.  Oh...and it tasted good too!

Strawberry Rhubarb pie

Still steaming

We did head over to Pete's folk's on Mothers' Day as well after spending a good portion of the day at my parents' for a turkey dinner.  Pete afforded me the opportunity to sleep in by tending to the boys on Sunday morning and making us all breakfast (which is NOT uncommon on weekends).  He also picked out a birdfeeder for our family and birdseed.  Luke was very excited about the gift and asked countless times about when we were going to hang it up.  We made the poor kid wait until Monday- over 24 hours after the present was unwrapped.  The feeder is a pretty basic house-shaped design but it was made from recycled materials in the U.S. of A.  It's nice to be able to share the benefits of "green" with the boys and helps them see the benefits of our recycling efforts.
We hung the birdfeeder in our lone dogwood tree in our front yard so the boys could observe it easily out the front window.  Here it is only Thursday and the vessel is empty.  We're not entirely sure who the primary recipient of the seedy treat was as we witnessed both aviary guests and ornery squirrels partaking of the feast.

D.  And finally, among our recent views from the public library's collection was Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Have you seen it?  It made for an interesting discussion on one of our evening walks.  I might just tense up a little now if a bird flies overhead.  Any critics out there have any comments about the ending?
Do you suppose:
     a.) The love birds had anything to do with the whole ordeal?
     b.) The film is meant to be a social commentary on how women pick, peck, and attack others?
     c.) We ought to consider the plot of the movie a likely scenario if we fail to respect nature and other living creatures?
     d.) Bodega Bay is meant to be the only area subject to the plague/attack?  For what reason?

I'm interested to know what you think.  I suppose I ought to sign off and spend the rest of the night with my husband... Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit...