Mom's Weekend of Celebrating

Yesterday we wrapped up a weekend of celebrating both my birthday and Mother's Day.  Luckily, after a cooler week with scattered rain, the weather pulled through with flying colors and gave us a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in the 80s!  It was amazing.  Ron and the kids did a wonderful job of making feel special on both of my special days.  Between the delicious meals, thoughtful gifts, and "down time" I was given both days, I felt loved and spoiled.  In addition, my mother came down again on my birthday to take the kids and me out to a park for a picnic lunch that she had packed which is a tradition that she has been doing since Logan was a newborn!  Although my family did not get together for Easter due to the Coronavirus, we all decided that we are over this social distancing thing--at least with family.  Luckily, my brothers and I are all on the same page, so we were able to get together with my mom and dad for Mother's Day on Sunday for a delicious dinner and a belated, Easter egg hunt in my parent's yard.  It was so nice to be together again after eight long weeks of quarantining and although life is so not back to normal yet, it was nice to just feel like it was normal again for a few hours!

On the morning of my birthday, the kids helped Ron prepare a birthday breakfast of eggs, sausage, fruit, and cinnamon rolls.  I was able to stay upstairs in my bedroom to take a shower and get ready for the day.  As crazy as this seems, I was finally able to find the time to shave my legs for the first time in EIGHT weeks!  It was pure heaven to have a slow start to the day when I didn't have to take care of a bunch of other human beings in addition to myself.

After my birthday breakfast, it was business as usual for the morning.  Ron locked himself in this office to work and I home schooled the three older children while Emmett took his morning nap.  At 12 o'clock on the dot, my mom arrived to take us out to our picnic.  We drove downtown and found a nice spot on the grass for our lunch at one of our favorite parks.  The only difference was that we had to park on the street since the parking lot was closed and the kids were not able to play on the playground since it was also closed.

Ella and Logan enjoying their lunches.

Baby Emmett waving to Ella who was standing behind me while I took this picture.

After we finished lunch, we were still able to walk along the creek and enjoy the beautiful day outside.  Here are Logan and Ella playing in the water.

Grandma posing with her grandkids.

The kids and me crossing the bridge on our way back to the car.

The stunning view we had of Mt. Rainier from the park.  On a sunny day, there is just no place like home.

After coming home and putting Emmett down for a nap, I actually laid down to watch TV and take a nap before dinner.  This is something I never do as the one time of the day I have right now to get something done and checked off of my to-do list is during Emmett's afternoon nap when the older three kids get their screen time.  It felt so amazing.  Ron then went and picked up Indian food from our favorite restaurant in town and cupcakes from my favorite bakery for my birthday dinner.  Here is a picture of my dinner before I enjoyed every bite of it!

After dinner, we opened up my gifts.  My good friend, Wendy, dropped off a delicious box of Godiva chocolates to enjoy.  The kids loved eating these "Go Diva" chocolate candies (as they called them) all weekend long.

Both Ella and Logan came up with a few gifts on their own.  They found some items around the house and decided to wrap them up to give to me as gifts.  I thought it was rather cute.  Here I am opening up a box of my old jewelry from Ella.

My one, big gift for my birthday was panel curtains for our master bedroom that I should have bought years ago!  My windows look so nice now that there are curtains hanging up on them!  Here I am about to open them up with all four kiddos at my side.

Logan also gave me two of my favorite, Reese's peanut butter cup candies with the help of two of his toy crabs.

Emmett enjoyed wandering all over the living room while I was opening my gifts.  Here is our cute boy in his new, summer outfit that he got for Easter.

A shot of my gigantic, birthday cupcake before blowing out the candle.

The kids getting ready to sing "Happy Birthday" to me.

We started off Mother's Day yesterday morning the same as my birthday.  I stayed in bed this time (and didn't get ready for the day) while waiting for breakfast to be made.  Ron and the kids treated me to omelettes, bacon, fruit, and lemon cake.  Once again, it was delicious!

I enjoyed opening up a second round of gifts and reading the kids' cards that they had made for me.  Although I missed the wonderful, handmade gifts that they would have made at school this past week if it hadn't been for the quarantine, I was grateful for the cards that they made me.  Here I am reading their joint, family card.

Giving my lovies a group hug!

One of the two nice gifts Ron and the kids gave me was my first food processor.  I have wanted one of these for years to help with cutting and chopping in the kitchen and I have never gotten around to buying one!

The other gift I asked for was to have the pots in the front and the back of the house to be planted with annual flowers.  Although I have a background in flower planting, I have not planted my pots in years due to being too overwhelmed by motherhood and all of the weeds in our yard that I have to go out and pull every spring.  So, I was so grateful to Ron who went and bought flowers for the first time in his life and who got the kids to help him with the planting.

Ella posing with her beloved blanket and the flower pots!

The kids posing with the flower pots in the backyard.

A close-up of one of the two flower pots that sits in the bench that Ron built years ago at our old house.

After home church, lunch, and another glorious nap, we packed up and drove to Issy to spend the afternoon and evening at my parent's house.  Here is a family picture that we had taken outside in their beautiful yard.

My kiddos and me.

Since the weather was so nice, most of us enjoyed eating dinner outside on my parent's deck.  All four of the men in the family pitched in to provide a wonderful dinner.

Ella and Lia eating with their older, girl cousins.

After dinner, we headed back outside for the belated, Easter egg hunt.  Emmett was mainly just interested in walking all over the yard instead of finding his goodies.

Logan finding a pirate-themed, coloring pack in his area.

Emmett putting a candy in his basket.

Ella searching in between the Rhododendron bushes for her treats.

Lia searching around in her section of the yard.

The funny picture I got of the three older girls posing with Chris on the lawn before taking the group picture.  Teenagers are such a funny thing.

All the grandchildren with grandma minus the three Montana kiddos.

After the hunt, we came back inside for dessert and gift opening.  My mother also shared a little message about her mother and my dad's mother and showed the beautiful hats that they used to wear to church.  She has quite the collection and all of the granddaughters got to model one for a few minutes.

My mom was able to open up the cards and gifts from all of us before we headed home.  Here is Ella helping her read our card before opening our gift.  It was the perfect way to end this special day and I am so glad that we were able to spend it with my own wonderful mom who has been such an immense blessing in my life all of these years!