Our Fat Tuesday Pancake Dinner

Last night we held our 4th annual Fat Tuesday Pancake Dinner. It's a tradition we started after living in Ohio and a friend of ours there had them. We thought it was a fun idea so we had our first one 4 years ago in Virginia. It's a family event and it's a lot of fun albeit chaotic! We were expecting around 50 people last night (kids included) and ended up with right around 60. One of my Christmas presents this year was a big electric skillet and I was looking forward to putting it to good use plus a friend of ours let us borrow theirs. Right around 4:45pm Josh and I got started cooking pancakes. By the time everyone arrived we had 3 overflowing pans full of them! (We learned the hard way last year when everyone arrived right at 6 o'clock and wiped us out quickly and we were furiously cooking more the whole time!) It was nice to actually be able to socialize this year and not be cooking over a hot skillet the whole time. Although this year was a little harder in a different way - Ellie won't let anyone hold her but Brian and I and although she's small, she starts to get heavy! So, we took turns and she ended up being up later than usual but did a great job (as long as we were holding her)!

I think fun was had by all. I haven't ventured upstairs yet to see the damage (where the kids were playing) - I'm afraid to! From what I understand it's probably smart on my part, I'll get there though.

I am posting a couple of pictures. I usually forget to take pictures so I tried to do better this year. Here's one of Josh and Jeri with fun Mardi Gras hats on and the one of Ellie and I was taken at the end of the night (I didn't have my beads on any more - Ellie was wearing one of mine and loving it!) So, if I look a little rough and tired, I was! {smile}