Baby dedication

What a crazy day! The last people just left from Gabe's baby dedication and I am totally bagged. I spent most of yesterday running around and doing errands to get ready for the dedication - I needed to pick up some groceries that my normal store didn't have and I needed to get some good coffee to serve from City Roast. Somewhere in there we had Gabe's 1 year doctors appointment. Everything checked out well with him, all the nurses kept telling me how gorgeous he is, and the doctor was happy with how large his vocabulary is. Well, I got home and realized that I didn't have my house keys. In all honesty, I kinda realized this when I left the house but we were in such a hurry to make the appointment on time that I hoped they were in the car and left. They weren't in the car :) Fortunately I had just enough battery power left in my cell to get a phone call out to Matt. While I was waiting for him to come let me into the house I decided to take down some of our Christmas lights. I climbed a tree for the first time in a very, very long time. It was kinda nice to do again. Really, there's something refreshing about climbing a tree. I got down as many lights as I could possibly reach and decided to dig some flower beds with my remaining time locked outside. Late last night Matt and I did some more cleaning and I finally got to bed around 3. ...And then I got up early this morning to keep cleaning and cooking. I had a bit of scone mix left on the counter and instead of finding a place to put it I decided to make scones for breakfast, as well as bacon since I needed to cook some of that up anyway for the BLT Bruschetta. I put on a pot of some really good coffee (Tanzanian Peaberry) and between Matt and I we drank to whole pot within a couple of hours. Once all of the rooms were fully cleaned I went back to cooking. I made up some Cinnamon-Sugar Tortilla Chips and prepped out the Black Bean Salsa. Then I quickly whipped up the BLT Bruschetta, for which I will post the recipe because it was quite good if I do say so myself. I was actually worried about it because I was improvising the recipe and I don't really eat bruschetta myself so I wasn't sure what to add - But I played it a little safe and it turned out well.
BLT Bruschetta:
1 Large tomato, diced
1/3 c. minced red onion
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp Red wine vinegar
1 tsp minced basil leaves
1/4 c. bacon, broken up

If you're planning on making the bruschetta ahead, that's fine, but don't add the bacon until you're ready to serve it.
Well, Matt's sisters came over a bit ahead to help me out and I'm very glad they did. Together we made the Mini #5's (crostini, honey-mustard sauce, ham, cheese, tomato and lettuce) and the proscuitto wrapped apples. Because they were over helping with other things I was able to get the Black Bean Salsa done and get everything set out. Then people started coming. We got a full pound of the Tanzania coffee and I think we went through half of it. All of the apples, cinnamon chips and the mini #5's were gone by the time the cake was ready. I had to refill the black bean salsa and the bruschetta a couple times too. People at alot! Although, to be fair, there were alot of people. 28 I think. We went through a lot of cake too - the whole angel food is gone (I just ate the last piece!) there's only a tiny bit of ice cream cake left and the chocolate cake butterfly only has a portion of one wing left!
The service was really nice too. The pastor doing the service talked about how we want to raise Gabriel to walk in the ways of the Lord and how we need to make sure we take care of ourselves in order to really take care of our kids. Gabe spent most of the time sticking his tongue out at people.
The first people arrived at about 1:40 and the last people left at 6:30... Man I'm bagged. Actually, my head just started hurting and it wouldn't surprise me if it had been hurting all along and I was just too busy to notice. Fortunately I have nothing to do tonight except hang out with my husband and baby! I'm not sure that's what we're going to do, but that's all that we need to do.
I think I need more coffee...

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)