High Five for Friday

Hi! Today I'm linking up Jennie to share some of my favorite stuff from the past week. 

1) I got home Friday evening and sitting on the counter was the Mother's Day present Grant made me at school. He called it his "grass head" and it was a great thing to come home to after a very trying week.

2) So much going on in this picture:

This is how cowboy Iron Man watches TV.

3) On Saturday we went to a birthday party for one of Grant's school friends. So much fun! It's always fun to watch him interact with his friends and it was nice to visit with parents. And the birthday boy's mom had some super fun stuff planned for the kids and I totally want to steal her ideas in a couple months :)

Sack races! 

Pinata!

4) Sunday was Mother's Day! I woke up to cards and presents (some cookbooks I wanted!) and then we had brunch/lunch with my in-laws (I tried chicken & waffles for the first time and it was life changing). Then we spent the rest of the afternoon quietly at home. It was a really nice day.

I always love the cards Grant makes me at school!

Mmmmm...

I snapped this pic on Mother's Day too. He was watching TV
like that and it made me laugh so hard. I'm so lucky to be this boys Mama!

5) I completed two sewing projects last weekend! Another blanket (requested by my mother-in-law for a friend of hers) and a crayon wallet that I've been wanting to try out. I was so excited that they both turned out well!

6) I had to stay home with Grant one day this week (sinus infection but he's feeling much better) and he was jazzed when he found out Grandpa was coming over to fix our broken dryer. Grandpa was very patient with Grant's desire to help and he got our dryer fixed! Woohoo! Being without a dryer isn't fun. We had to rush off to Grant's doctor's appointment right after and followed that up with some ice cream for the patient. This was a sick day Grant didn't mind in the least!

Grandpa's little helper

Ice cream lover

Happy Friday everyone!

Have a great weekend!

Mother's Day 2014

Mother's Day this year was low-key and pretty great. It sort of started on Thursday when Grant came home from school with the card he made for me and a little plant waiting to sprout (which actually had a little bud this morning!).

My first Mother's Day card that he wrote his name in!

My little plant...loaded with sequins :)

Friday afternoon, Husband came home with some pretty flowers that he and Grant had picked out for me. They're so pretty and they're still making my house smell so good!

I looooove stargazer lillies

Husband told me it was "my weekend" and that we could do whatever I wanted. That made me excited but I tried not to get carried away :) On Saturday I had planned to run errands, so we all went and stopped at the museum on the way. It's so fun to wander around there watching Grant get excited about everything. 

"Can I put my hand in his mouth??"

Sunday morning I woke up with Grant's face in my face and him telling me "Happy Mother's Day, Mama!" Never a bad way to wake up.

I also got one more present Grant made me at school :)

I've always wanted to do Mother's Day brunch (I'm relatively easy to please...especially if food is involved). So we had made plans to eat with Husband's mom and stepdad. We went to several places trying to find a place that didn't have a crazy wait time and in that time, Grant decided to tell us he felt like he had to throw up. He never did and ended up eating lunch but we went home after brunch anyway. 

With Grant feeling better, we went out a little later to look at picnic tables. I've been really one and with the weather getting nice it would be great to eat dinner outside, yes? But we didn't find one at the Lowes we went to. Husband ended up pulling in the driveway with one on Monday and we ate dinner outside last night!

It was a really great weekend and we all got to spend time together having fun, which is really the best way to spend Mother's Day.

Mother's Day is always a little bittersweet for me, obviously. This year was better than the last couple and I know it'll get easier. It's easy to get caught up in the hype of the day and feel like you should be made to feel special that day. I had a little reality check Friday evening when my sister called to let me know that a very good friend of ours got some bad news. A friend who has had some very tough times in years past and faced every one of them with a smile on her face and a fantastic attitude. It made me realize how petty and commercialized Mother's Day has become and how lost the real meaning is. No, I don't have my mom around anymore. And as I helped Grant spell "Gramma" to write on the envelope for my mother-in-law's card, it's easy to feel a little sadness that he's not writing "Nana" on one too. But the reality is that even without my parents, I still have a lot. I have so much to be thankful and grateful for that aren't things. "Things" don't matter. Though I had a wonderful day and weekend, I don't need Mother's Day to make me feel special. Grant does that for me every day in big and little ways. I'm healthy, my family is healthy, we have a roof over our heads and food to eat. What made it a wonderful day was not what I got but that I got to celebrate the day with my husband and wonderful little boy and his grandparents that love him so much. 

High Five for Friday

Today I'm linking up with Lauren to share some of my favorite things from the past week. (P.S. I have more than 5 this week)

1) On Saturday, Grant and I picked my sister up from the airport! She usually comes to spend Mother's Day and the week after with us. Grant so loves her visits!

2) Mother's Day! We had a very low key day this year. I wanted to wander around the flea market for a bit, then we stopped in to see my Mother-in-Law, and we went out to dinner after that. My sister and I topped it all off with hot fudge sundaes that night toasting our mom. Mother's Day is always a little rough and this year hit me harder for some reason. But the sundae sure hit the spot :)

Grant made me a card at school!

Pretty flowers! Husband knows I love tulips :)

Sundaes for Mom

3) CHEESE! With visits from my sister come goodies from home. Including my favorite chocolate covered pretzels and CHEESE CURD! Cheese curd is THE BEST and I've been snacking on it all week.

4) On Monday, we packed up and drove to the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher! I had never taken my sis here before and Grant loves "the fishies" so we did a little day trip down there.

ROAR! (says Grant)

I never knew they had a little shark petting tank!

5) Playtime at the park! We have some great parks just down the road and I haven't had time to get there lately. This week we took a nice long walk around both parks and worked in some playground time for Grant too.

6) Family movie night! We do that every once in a while and I really wanted to try to do it while my sis was here. So we rented Brave (super cute movie, by the way) and popped popcorn on the stove (so good!) and cuddled up for movie night.

So much that we needed two bowls!

7) We got a pool! Ok, so it's just an inflatable one. BUT it's deep enough that Grant can really play in it and it's big enough that I can sit in it :) Grant loved it the second we started putting water in it and we had to drag him out when he was so cold that he was shaking from head to toe.

Yes, he's in his undies.

HAPPY FRIDAY and I hope you have a great weekend :)

Mother's Day 2012

*Finally! Sorry I'm super late posting this - I've been pretty busy. And this is a super long post...sorry about that too!*

My Mother's Day began with Husband bringing Grant into the bedroom - because I slept in - to wake me up saying "Mama!" and then giving me a big hug. That's always a nice way to wake up, even if it's not Mother's Day. Then my sister, who came to spend the week with us, cooked us yummy omelets for breakfast! (Except for Grant, his Highness required waffles - or wahfoos - for his morning meal.)


My Mama's Day breakfast and my
Mama's Day flowers :)

 After we ate, my Sis took Grant outside to run around and pop bubbles while I relaxed on the couch with my coffee. While outside burning off the breakfast carbs, my sweet guy picked a flower a for me and came running into the house with it as proud as can be. It was so super cute.


Sweet :)

So with all the running in and out of the house with the flower, it took us a minute to realize the dog got out. No biggie, right? Wrong. My dog does not come back willingly when he gets out. My sister managed to catch him fairly easily - compared to other times he's gotten out - but not before Brodie managed to give some attitude. So he was put in doggie time-out.

Later on that day my Mother-in-Law and family came over for a Mother's Day cookout like we did last year. My sister cooked most of the food so that I could stay out of the kitchen on "my" day...that was rather nice. I felt a little spoiled (and lazy)!


Shauna cooking us dinner :)

And while dinner was cooking my Mother-in-Law opened her present!


An ice cream maker! Yum!

While my Sis and I were shopping the day before, I had found the cutest outfit (and it was on sale - bonus!) for Grant that he just had to wear on Mother's Day! So we took him outside for pictures.

Put 'em up! Put 'em up!



Sweet...and handsome too :)

My Mother-in-Law suggested getting Husband outside for a family picture. We tried...


More than once...




It just wasn't happening. But it was pretty hysterical!

 So we decided to play before dessert.

After we watched Grant wear himself out (he was seriously playing so hard that he was sweating) we headed in for some YUMMY dessert!


Honey Bun Cake that my Mother-in-Law made! It
a favorite of mine!

 

I made Chocolate Chip Cookie Mousse Bombs that I've been
wanting to make for months!



Mmm...looky in the middle :) You can find
the recipe HERE if you want to make some too.



Grant decided to try one of those (the cake had pecans
in it and we're not quite there with letting him have nuts yet).



Grant's favorite thing to do was share food
with Auntie Shauna.



Hahaha...I love this one :)

It was a great Mother's Day, well a great day period. And my sister was with us for a whole week, so we had more great days after that too! I'll leave you with one of my favorite pictures from the day. We were standing around outside and Grant was being quizzed. I happened to snap this as someone was asking him "Where's Mama?"