Happy Freaking Mother's Day

We had quite the weekend. Let's begin.

Friday. My dear friend's husband graduated from law school, and so I helped her put on what turned out to be a huge party for him. We had started to plan it at my house, but thank the weather gods, it looked cool and rainy so we moved it to our church. This was a very good thing because there were at least 50 people there. We threw a fiesta with major decorations, great fajitas with all the fixin's and we basically worked our butts off. I was so exhausted Friday night that I was surprised that Saturday went the way it did.

Saturday. I have these fond memories of doing a big job with my family on a Saturday and at the end of the day feeling so tired and happy about the hard work we did, enjoying the evening in a really clean space. We had a Saturday like that. Troy and I both worked so hard all day. The whole house was a total mess from the party prep the night before, so that got all cleaned, but I also washed all the windows (ahhhhh!), did all the laundry, and the real kicker was that Troy finished our bedroom closet, which got ripped out a couple of years ago to make way for the staircase to our attic. We've gotten pretty used to having the only closet in the house be the tiny one in Stomper's room, and having a big old set of shelves in our room to hold more stuff. That felt normal. So when Troy effectively quadrupled our closet space it made quite a difference. Getting the extra shelves out of our room, unclogging Stomper's closet, and having a lovely space to store our clothes just felt like a miracle. It took Troy so much work and time that we named it my official Mother's Day Gift and I still feel a thrill every time I open the door. This picture doesn't do much justice because I couldn't back up enough to capture the entire closet on film, but here are some of the cedar shelves Troy made.



I couldn't be happier. Then came Sunday. Wow.

Sunday. We invited my in-laws over for dinner, so late Saturday night I went to the store to get the groceries for the meal, including a couple of cuts of beef to oven-roast the next morning. Well, Sunday mornings being Sunday mornings, getting to church was a party. I was a little extra tense because I was trying to put together a little craft for the nursery kids to give to their moms. I got that done, and then before the last hour of church slipped home to pop the roast in the oven. One problem. There appeared to be no meat in my house. Somehow the meat did not make it home from the grocery store. Yay! That was a fun surprise. So I headed back to church because I didn't want to miss Stomper singing with with primary kids. Of course, 5 minutes before he was supposed to go up and sing he grabbed one of his squishy dinosaurs a little too hard and the thing exploded in a burst of tiny plastic beads...yeah, kind of a mess. He was very sad. We went out in the hall to tearfully dispose of it, and he of course wouldn't have anything to do with the singing primary kids. He and I sat in the hall the whole time. By the time church had ended Stomper had cheered up. We went on the front lawn, me feeling slightly panicked due to my lack of beef, whereupon Stomper, now playing with another beloved squishy toy, launched it onto the roof of the church. More hysterics. So I dropped my stuff, grabbed his hand and hauled him to the 2nd floor bathroom, and lowered him out the window so he could cross the roof and collect his toy. Okay. NOW can we go home so I can figure out what to feed everyone? Not yet. We got to the parking lot to find that a friend of mine had not been paying attention as she backed out of her spot and ran into our car. The poor girl felt so bad, plus she had bashed out her rear window but luckily we sustained only a minor dent.

Then I had several friends come to my rescue, donating more than an entire meal to us, including chicken breasts and pork tenderloin, plus a bunch of other stuff. Luckily Morris and Carol were late so almost everything was done by the time they got here and we ended up enjoying a lovely afternoon. After lunch we ate dessert (these fantastic little mini-lemon cakes drenched in glaze and drowning in strawberries....yum...) on the back lawn while both kids stripped and played like little wild piggies in the mud. Bitty was especially nutty, but managed to stay pretty cheerful until she fell over, sound asleep before her head hit the pillow, at exactly 7:15, and slept until 7:15 this morning. What a day, indeed.