Mother's Day

Mother's Day was good this year. We ended up having everyone to our house for dinner. By everyone....I literally mean E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E! I think we ended up having 22 people over. It was crazy! Not very relaxing....lots of cleaning and preparing but the end result was hanging out with my family and visiting with them.
Our lives are so busy we don't ever get to all hang out together except for holidays. It's sad but all of our kids are pre-teens and teens and they are all very active. Needless to say when we do get together, we make it count. Lots of laughter and good times.

Oh a lighter note, kind of a funny story. Bear with me. Usually Chad buys me two hanging baskets of flowers for the front porch. While I love the flowers, it's a gift that has always bummed me out a little. I'm not trying to sound ungrateful however.... even if Mother's Day didn't happen, we would still buy hanging baskets for the front porch. I have never told Chad how much I didn't enjoy this gift because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. THIS YEAR... I tried to by sly and cunning and decided upon a "James Bond sort of ploy." (Insert evil laughter here) I decided to buy flowers this year while I was out running some miscellaneous errands and bought the coolest hanging baskets myself! I got home, hung them on the porch and then invited Chad out to have a look-see. He looked at the baskets, then looked at me, and then back at the baskets. "Uh, honey....?" (Here it comes...wait for it...wait for it....) "You bought hanging baskets for the porch."

"Uh huh," I reply. "Aren't they pretty?"

"Yes. But, um... I always buy you hanging baskets for Mother's Day."

(Inside I'm jumping for joy.) "Oh! That's right! (sigh deeply) Well, you'll have to get me something else this year, I guess." (And the Grammy for Best Planned-Out Performance goes to.......)

SO..this year Chad got me this gorgeous mult-stone bracelet. I love it so much. You can kind of see it in the picture. I love it because it has all of our birthstones in it. It's just so pretty.

So, even though Chad was disappointed for a millesecond, even he agrees that it worked out better. I think he understands about the hanging basket situation now. Even though he was a bit shocked when it happened.

I know there are two pictures of me (I rarely post pictures of myself...blech!) but my brother for some reason took numerous shots of me. I'm not sure why. After awhile, I got tired of the flashes and gave him a good shot. That ended it all!