For sale: a bunch of stuff

It was time again for us to empty our garage and pile everything into our friend Clay's front yard. We had the annual Vilakazi garage sale yesterday, and it was great! Even though we didn't have as much stuff, our board members worked and worked, and we made nearly as much as last year. In fact, we brought in enough to pay for about 25 backpacks. Hooray!

New Year's Eve

We celebrated New Year's Eve this year with so many wonderful friends. First we went to the Marks' house for a kind of kid-friendly pajama party. We put Mia in her PJs and let her run around with all the other kids. Our friends randomly snatched her up to snap some photos with her.

Then Jill was nice enough to let Mia stay the night so we could go out for a grown-up party! It was so fun. We danced and saw all of our friends we hadn't seen in a long time. It was such a great New Year's.

Partaaay

So today was the big party. Mia, of course, probably didn't know it was her birthday party. I'm pretty sure she was just excited about the playground equipment.

We packed up the coolers and Mia helped.

Then she demanded that Leigh's dad help her carry one of the coolers all over the yard.
We celebrated with lots of good friends. Once again we had a decorate-your-own-cupcake station. Mia decorated three.



Then she enjoyed her own cupcake - the world's best cupcake ever. Our friend Alison, who is an absolutely baking superstar, made her a cake in the shape of the Arcadia Round Barn, which is a Route 66 icon in Oklahoma.

Then, we opened presents. Because even if you tell people that they don't have to bring presents, they bring presents. To be fair, shopping for a 2-year-old is pretty fun. Mia got tons of board books, which is fantastic. She wants to turn the pages and we've lost a few paper books that way. (If you try to turn the pages when she wants to, she'll quickly say, "No. Stop, mama." She also got some cute clothes and fun toys.

It was such a fun day, but I still can't believe she's 2. Remember when she was a teeny-tiny baby?

A big day for Vilakazi

Today was a big day for Vilakazi. As some of you may or may not know, the foundation Leigh and I started earned its official 501(c)3 status a few weeks ago. It was an exciting day after nearly two years of hard work by our amazing board, volunteers and supporters! After that, we felt a little adrift. We'd been shooting for our 501(c)3 goal for so long, it was strange actually achieving it.

So we took time Saturday to have our first ever board retreat. We didn't really retreat anywhere. We actually just went to my office. Our fantastic friend, Kelli Dupuy, was our facilitator and we accomplished so much! We talked about board development, goal setting and fundraising for the next year. We've set a lofty goal for ourselves, but it's going to be so exciting when we reach it! We're going to help hundreds - hundreds! - of South African children next summer. (I hope you will all be a part of it!)


After spending all day together, we decided it would be great to spend even MORE time together. Some of our board members joined up with a few friends to play in this annual trivia night fundraiser that benefits an Oklahoma nonprofit that works to prevent teen pregnancy. (Boy, do we need this group in Oklahoma!) Our team finished FOURTH out of 48 teams! It was incredible, if not overly competitive. We also finished fourth last year. Next year we're totally winning medals. Or stealing medals. Whatever.

It might sound cliche, but Leigh and I count our blessings every day. We have the most amazing friends!

A child of the 80s

Leigh's birthday is Saturday, but scheduling a party for him has been pretty much impossible. The city's big film festial is this weekend, and friends have scheduled events for next week. We were busy last weekend. It just wasn't going to work out, and Leigh was getting pretty bummed out about it. So I planned him a surprise party, even though he asks for a surprise party every single year. The theme: 1980s. Leigh was born in 1981, so we had a tribute to that child of the 80s.

Our friend invited us over for dinner as a decoy, and we showed up in regular clothes. I'd been to the thrift store to buy some amazing outfits for all three of us, so they were waiting in the trunk. Our friends Stacy and Andy opened the door, and Stacy was dressed completely 80s. She had a fabulous side ponytail and old Lemondheads shirt. Stacy is one of the most stylish people I know. She's always dressed to the nines, and I have literally never seen her in anything but a dress or skirt. I knew the surprise was blown as soon as I saw her.

Turns out, Leigh just thought Stacy was drunk.

Surprise still on!

We walked across their living room - where Leigh's presents were - and toward the kitchen, where our friends all shouted surprise. Leigh was, sadly, actually surprised. He will not be taking up a job as a detective any time soon.

Sadly, Mia was also surprised. She was not as excited.

I dashed out to the car and got our hilarious outfits. Here are some of the folks who dressed up:

And more party pictures:

This is my favorite picture. I'm guessing that Stacy labeled these drinks. "Sangria" and "Boring Juice."

More from the Dean wedding

I snagged some photos from Deaner from his wedding day. Hooray!

Bryan gets married!

Our friend Bryan Dean got married! Aw. Little Deaner. Growing up. Sarah looked beautiful, Bryan looked nervous and the whole ceremony lasted approximately 38 seconds. Leigh was a groomsman, and he did a great job at, you know, walking and standing. It was at the state capitol, where Leigh and I got married. (Aw!) We finally had something fancy enough to put Mia in her amazing red dress from my grandparents. Look at this kid! None of our pictures of the ceremony turned out, and we didn't take any pictures with the bride and groom! We suck. So here are some random pictures we took right before we left. With Uncle Clay: Running crazed through the halls of the Oklahoma Capitol: Leigh and his mom, Jill: This is Leigh's favorite photo. He was taking forever to take the picture and there's a very limited window in which you can photograph a toddler. So he took this picture after the opportunity had slipped away. Then he showed it to everyone he could. "Do you see this?!? I get this look every day!" hahaha

We tried the photo again, this time with my mom. Mission accomplished:

South African yummies

Tonight we celebrated with some of our closest friends at our fourth annual Very Tribal Christmas. We were a total mess with invitations this year, so our apologies if you received your invitation, like, two hours before dinner or if you never were invited at all. You were not alone. (For some extra context, we still haven't finished mailing our Christmas cards. Yeah.)

Of course I was too busy talking to take any pictures except for these:

Anyway, the dinner was fabulously fun, and I loved having the chance to cook and try new things. I meant to take pictures of the food immediately after I finished cooking the food, but I suspect I was too busy talking to remember to do that. So, there's no proof of the sausage rolls, crab cakes or pizza, but I have proof of three other things. They're easy to make.

Malva Pudding

This is my take on the traditional South African dessert, which is pronounced malfa instead of malva. I used Oprah's recipe from her girls' school in SA but made the cake into cupcakes ahead of time. It was designed so that people could eat them as they wanted because malva pudding is served hot. I put the cupcakes out and then served the sauce in a sauce pan with a spoon. It worked out pretty well I think, and we had some left overs that Leigh and I can enjoy later.

Mint Pudding

I nabbed this recipe from Leigh's aunt this summer. It's so, so, so simple and so, so, so delicious. I served it up in cups so it wouldn't get messy, but it's normally served in a 9x13 pan. I think next time I'll add some corn starch or something to make it a little firmer. Here's the recipe:

* Smash up shortbread cookies or vanilla wafers in the bottom of the cup/pan.

* Sprinkle chocolate/mint chips on top. (I used the Andes kind that I found with the chocolate chips, but Leigh's aunt used chocolate and a sort of rock-candy style mint.)

* Use a mixer to blend 1 part caramel sauce to 2 parts cream.

* Pour on top of the cookies and mint.

* Chill overnight.

Minted Mango

I got this recipe from a cookbook that Leigh's mom got me last year. It's actually minted grapefruit, but turns out you can't buy grapefruit in bulk. So we had a little switch-a-roo.

* Boil 1 cup of water with 1/2 cup of sugar and smashed up mint.

* Pour over a pan of mango (or whatever kind of fruit). Use a flat-ish pan so the liquid seeps into the fruit evenly. The real recipe says to strain out the mint, but I think it looks pretty so I ignored that part.

* Chill overnight, stirring whenever you remember.

* Serve cold, at room temperature or warm. Whatever. We did room temperature.

The P+D Pub Crawl

We had the BEST TIME last night with our friends at the Second Annual Pump and Dump Pub Crawl. The name wasn't exactly accurate this year, but it was too good to get rid of.

Our new room

We spent this weekend redoing our bedroom. As you can see, it really needed some help. Mia was even upset by how blah it was.


Clay and Marc came over to help us, and it was fantastic! Our bedroom was the last room in the house to have carpet, and we planned to paint the hardwood floors a light grey. Clay has the same thing in his bedroom and it looks outstanding. We eventually wanted to paint the hardwood in the hall and living room to match. But when Marc pulled up the carpet, we discovered that the hardwood floors didn't actually exist in our bedroom. (We also discovered that the floor where Deter sleeps had a disgusting layer of silt and dust under it. Sick!)


The people who flipped the house before I bought it had just gutted the floors and replaced it with huge boards. Fine. Whatever. Change of plan. So we decided to do the textured linoleum like is in our bathroom.

We also decided to build a new bed, like the one Clay built for himself in his room. It's basically like a three bookshelves on their sides that make a U shape. It was so easy! We bought a few 2x12s at Lowe's and had them cut the wood to the sizes. So we didn't even need a saw. Clay brought over his drill and we screwed them all together. Here's a picture of the primed wood in the middle of the painting process. We decided to paint our bed dark brown.


We chose a dark grey for our room and decided to repaint the trim white. It looks really nice - very calming.


After the new floor was down and the walls were painted, we had to figure out how to arrange the furniture. Mia assisted with that.



Here she is giving us advice about where the bed should be. She pointed out that the way we originally have the bed facing (in this photo) was a little too crowded. We followed her advice and turned it the other way.


We haven't put everything back on the walls, so I'll put some more pictures up when it's all finished. For now, here's the finished product: