How about some grocery shopping?

Today we had Kyle and Genevieve and the family over to lunch. During the morning I Skype’d my brother to wish him a happy birthday, and while discussing my crisis of having only castor sugar and no icing sugar, realized that I could ask his wife for advice, who is an expert cake-maker. She suggested that I make a lemon loaf which has the sugary icing, which I thought was an excellent idea. As soon as I had finished on the computer, I got rice going, made the loaf, then did the chicken-a-la-king. I was also running low on flour though, so by the time I had made the cake, there was not quite enough flour left for the chicken sauce. I added a bit of bread flour, but since it’s quite a heavy flour, I thought it best not to add too much. But I got the ingredients somehow muddled (and didn’t have enough green pepper in the freezer either), so it wasn’t quite thick enough. Adding a tin of creamed mushrooms actually helped a bit though, so it wasn’t quite as runny as it could have been. I had everything ready by about 12.30, which is more or less when I was expecting them, but they arrived closer to 1. I quickly did the vegetables (mixed and brussel sprouts), and then it was all ready. I had the four boys at the smaller tables, and the remaining five of us at the main table, set with the Hessian placemats I made a while ago, and paper towels for serviettes – another thing which I had run out of! We had some excellent fellowship over lunch. The boys couldn’t wait to be finished eating so they could run all over the house and play! We had tea/coffee and the cake after lunch, and it was just a very informal afternoon. I wanted to get a photo, but left it a bit late and the lighting wasn’t good – this is therefore more representative than correct! (I have to say that in case they read the blog and wonder why I posted such a terrible photo of them…). They left at about 5.30, giving us time to get the boys bathed and fed, and then they (the boys) continued watching a DVD (now for the third time), while Nick and I went to church at 6.30 for our music practice with Pam. The boys came to church at 6.45 as I had instructed them (I set the timer for them). Nick’s message was excellent, on persecution, and there were a goodly number of people. He is still not doing too well at the moment, and with three services to sing and preach at today, he is coughing a lot more. He was up a few times in the night. Aaron is still sniffing and coughing a bit, Caleb is about the same, and I am improving – an occasional cough and a bit of nose blowing still.