The Best Father's Day Gift Ever!

Seriously, is this not the cutest gift ever?!?! I am totally patting myself on the back this time! I got the idea from someone's creative blog where they used the foot to create the lobster. I added the hand prints, then painted the outline, eyes and tentacles. We spend a lot of time in Maine and Newport in the summertime and so the lobster means something to Daddy. He was positively thrilled when he opened this!


We had a lovely day. I had his entire family over. His sisters, their spouses and kids came to celebrate the day with us. The kids all took off immediately to the playroom or outdoors so that the adults were able to have a nice time as well.


For lunch we had Hoisin Garlic marinated grilled chicken, cilantro rice, and Asian-inspired salad with edamame, scallions, cucumber, peas, raw pistachios, romaine lettuce and a Sesame Ginger Dressing and asparagus lightly sauteed in sesame oil, garlic and sea salt. To drink we had white wine, red wine, assorted beers, lemonade, iced tea, and Arnold Palmers. My mother-in-law brought a homemade apple pie and blueberry pie that I served with the ice cream the kids made last night.

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We sat the kids together in the kitchen... We could have had everyone in the Dining Room, but it would have been tight. Daddy was worried that the others would miss the kids not being with us what with it being Father's Day and all, but not a tear was shed when they learned the adults would be sitting separately!

I set up the kids table with extra food so the older two could help the younger ones and not come in and bother us! (Smart thinking!) The kitchen adjoins the dining room so I could see them while we were eating.

The kids loved getting the candy necklaces as favors and played (ate!) them when they had finished their meal.

Below cousin Miren models her lovely neck ware!

We decided last night we would eat inside since everything outside was so wet and more rain was forecast for this morning. So I brought out (and ironed! Yes, I ironed!) the lovely new table linens from Williams-Sonoma my Mother-In-Law got me for Christmas. It looks lovely with my grandmother's silver and I used the trivets I made a few weeks ago. I had intended to use my favorite Ralph Lauren goblets, but they hadn't been used for a while and there was a lovely layer of fog over them and I was not about to wash them this late in the game!

The true highlight of the day was the wonderful slideshow that my Sister-in-law and neice, Brielle, put together for all the Dads. There were pictures of Rebecca as a newborns that almost brought me to tears and hilarious photographs of Daddy and his sisters from the 70s and early 80s!

While we were still at the table (kids had long excused themselves) Alexander decided to do a little decorating himself. I guess he deemed the guest book as unimportant and thought the raptor much more suitable!