Mommy's Birthday

Last weekend was my birthday, and it was very full and very fun. I had to be at church all morning on Saturday. While I was there, the girls baked my cake completely on their own - Ryan just turned the oven on.

They decorated it the next day at Grammy's house.

Notice the full mouth..... :)

My great friend, Melynie, drove up from VA to surprise me! She met me at church with her tiny baby, Morgan, and they tagged along with us for the rest of the day. (My girls were thrilled to get to play with Morgan all afternoon!!) Then, for dinner, she had organized a group of eight girls to go out to dinner! Wow - what are they going to do in 4 years when I turn 40?!?! :)


Melynie left the next morning, and I went shopping with my mom and sisters for the day - quite a treat without my normal tag-a-longs. We went back to my mom's house for dinner and the cake.

I feel so spoiled!

Cousins

Trudy and Penny after some wild playtime:

Mother's Day

We had a great day here! The girls made awesome signs for me (instead of cards - nice idea, Daddy!), breakfast in bed, and Ryan built me a new window box for the front of the house. It looks terrific, but I told him I'd get the flowers this week, so I'll post a picture then. We had donuts after church with Grammy, and then went back later for dinner with my family. I'm a very lucky mommy!!!

Graduation Video

Here it is - the video of my silly daughter receiving her Certificate of Achievement. I don't know which part I enjoy more - holding her paper directly over her face or tossing her mortarboard on the floor. One of a kind.

Graduation

She's only four, but today Lila graduated from her "Mom's Morning Out" program at a local church. It was pretty cute. After singing a song, the names of the "graduating" (i.e. going to a different school next year) students were read. Lila did great! She went over to Miss Betsy, who placed a mortarboard on her head, and walked across the stage to Miss Mimi, who handed her a certificate. Fine. Very nice.
Here's where it gets a bit more Lila-ish. She then stood in the front row with the certificate completely covering her face - as if she were reading it, but with her nose touching it. As her mother, I know that there were a few reasons for this: 1. She was embarrassed. 2. She didn't want me to take her picture. 3. People were laughing at her (class clown - mark my words!)- she could hear the snickering throughout the audience. So then she removed her hat and threw/dropped it on the floor. She held this pose for most of the rest of the name-reading.

I got some good video of the shenanigans, but I have to wait for Ryan to come home from Chicago to teach me how to get it off of the video camera, so I'll add that later. Here are some (grainy) pictures in the meantime.

Bri and Lila

"Baby Emma" and Lila - poor kid will NEVER lose that title in our house!

Gramma - Don't Read This!!

Well, we had a bit of excitement here today.

It briefly stopped raining here this evening (it seems like it's been raining for months!), so the girls went out to play for a few minutes - very few minutes. All of the sudden, I heard terrorized shrieks from my children. "Ahh! Mommy! Mommy! Emergency!" (repeat over and over again as loud as humanly possible) - I think that's roughly how it went. Upon hearing the frantic screaming, I raced outside - assuming that a limb had been severed at the very least.

But no, Trudy was in the middle of a snake vs. dog face-off. There was a 4 foot black snake by the swingset coiled up and striking at Trudy. My dog, of course, thought this was tremendous fun! She was pouncing all around it like it was the greatest toy ever! Mayhem followed, as the girls were afraid for the dog, and I really just wanted her kill the snake. We got Trudy in the house, then the snake went nuts- all slithery and stuff. I would not normally say that I'm afraid of snakes, but I did not like this one. He was big and fast and wiggling all over my yard.

Did I mention Ryan' s in Chicago this week? Yeah.

I grabbed a shovel and chased him. He enjoyed that immensely, jumping and striking at my shovel. Freaky. What do I do? Do I kill him? Let him go? He's just an innocent snake - probably has a family home waiting for him. What will the girls think of my decision here - very impressionable they are. And then, when it came down to it, he was just too fat. I mean, what if the shovel doesn't go all the way through him?! Then what?! What if it totally crunches - yuck! What if he lunges for me as I go to hit him with the shovel? Then I have a snake bite to deal with before soccer try-outs!

So instead, I chased him around my yard like a lunatic jumping from side to side until he escaped... this is bad......... under my deck.

Ugh. Now I have to think of snakes having a party under my deck every time I walk out there. Disgusting! They probably hangout, eat the drippings from my grill, and do the limbo or something - I bet they're good at that, too!

And what does my far-away-this-week husband have to say about this? "Make sure you leave the back door closed - you don't want him to get in the house." Really?!?! Thanks for the words of encouragement, hon.

Here are the pictures I took when I wasn't running and lifting my feet as high off of the ground as I possibly could.

Happy Cinco De Mayo!

What do you bring in to school when the rest of your class is bringing in chips and salsa?............ sugar cookies decorated like Mexican flags, of course!