My Day and Mother's Day

We wrapped up a whirlwind weekend tonight celebrating both my birthday and Mother's Day.  We were blessed with some glorious, spring weather and had a grand time celebrating outside more than once!  For the fourth birthday in a row, my mom (and dad this year) came down from Issy to take the kiddos and me out for a picnic lunch that she packed.  I always love this as it helps break up the day of being home with little ones who really don't even know that there is anything special or different about the day.  We went to DeCoursey Park and enjoyed eating my mom's delicious lunch before going on a walk along the duck pond and the river and stopping at the new playground to give Logan and Lia a chance to check it out for the first time!

Here are my kiddos and me getting ready to blow out the candles on the strawberry shortcake provided by my wonderful mom.

Logan, Ella, and Grandma checking out the pond.

Lia pointing out some ducks.

Getting ready to leave the pond and begin our walk.

Logan enjoyed throwing rocks into the river and was not happy to leave!  Yes, he even treated me to a birthday tantrum.  Lucky me.

My darling Lia in her new Frozen dress!

Grandma helping Ella walk along the gravel path.

My precious girls.

The kids and me on the bridge.

Lia and Logan breaking in the new play structure.

Lia flying down the slide!

And Logan, too!

Lia climbing around in the giant net.

That night, Ron brought home Thai food par my request and a beautiful cake covered in spring flowers.  Here are the kids getting ready to sing "Happy Birthday" to me for the second time that day.

And blowing the candles out.  Thank heavens there were only eight candles instead of 39!!!

Ron and Lia cutting into this massive cake!  And just a side note, I forgot to take any pictures of our birthday festivities that continued on to Saturday night.  Ron and I invited five other couples from church to join us for sushi at a local restaurant.  We left Ella behind with a teenage babysitter for the first time and went out to eat for an evening of delicious food and hilarious conversation WITHOUT wrestling a wriggly, wiggly baby.  It was heaven.

On Mother's Day, Ron and I hosted my family for dinner and some gift opening.  Although it had cooled off a little bit by Sunday, we still were able to barbecue and eat outside.  It was so much fun to have everyone over for the first time in a while.  Here is Logan eating his dessert on the tire swing with cousins, Riley and Garrett.

Lia swinging away and eating dessert with cousins, Callie and Vivi.

The adults and Ella hanging out on the deck.

Kids at play.

More kids at play with grandpa pushing Ella around on Lia's old, balance bike.

Grandma and Ella.  So cute.

Of all of the balls we have in our backyard, Logan and Trenton decided to fight over the dirtiest, oldest one of the group.  It was so funny to see them chasing each other around the backyard fighting over this silly ball.  Here is a picture I took with Logan in possession of the ball, running away from a determined Trenton.

Logan then ran up onto the deck and proceeded to hide the ball and him under one of our benches.

After much persuading from the adults, we finally convinced these boys to throw the ball back and forth.  They actually had a good time once they started doing this!

Trenton tossing the ball to Logan.

And Logan getting ready for another toss!