A great week (so far)...

I promised to update this blog more, so, I'm holding myself to that promise. I'll start with Mother's Day. It was great. REALLY great!! For starters, Ben and the boys made me a card and gave me the wind chime I have been wanting. It sounds so lovely when the wind blows! Good job, boys!! After getting ready, we (the six of us living at "home") went to 10:00 mass at St. Francis. As dorky as it might sound, I really loved where we sat. Everyone seated nearby were familiar families and that was a comforting feeling. Mother's Day two years ago was the first time we all went to Mass together. I used that day as a day to do whatever I wanted and my wish for our family was to invoke church into our lives. Exactly two years later, it has been a success. We went from being non-church goers with one non-church going Lutheran and one non-church going Catholic and children who did not have that richness in their lives, to two parents who are both practicing Catholics, raising their children to the best of their abilities as devout Catholics. It's a good feeling and I don't have any regrets. It's also very nice to have that church as your school, too! Brody has been going to pre-school there and will start Kindergarten there in the fall. Here's a very belated shot of his first day of pre-school.

After church, we went to BWW. I had a craving for boneless wings. Parmesan garlic boneless wings. I tried fried pickles for the first time ever, too. Yum!! While at BWW, we realized that it was the EIGHT of us! None of us could remember the last time that had happened. No friends, no boyfriends (we did miss Joe, though!), just us. We agreed a picture needed to be taken and then forgot to take one! Boo!! Chels did take a vine though: We're all here! It was so nice to be all together. I'm proud of my family. There is no better feeling in the world than to have everyone around the same table and seeing smiles on faces. Perfect!

Once lunch was over, Summer, Chelsey and I went to get pedicures and manicures. Summer treated me to mine and it was FANTASTIC!! I don't know what was better-the massage chair, or the foot and calf massage. Both at the same time was heaven. I wish you could go and just get that done. I could really care less about the toe painting. I can paint my own toes, but I do admit that it's nice to have someone to that for you. There's something to be said about being pampered!

It was a great day. It was hard to go back to work on Monday! But, with the forecast of 90 on Tuesday, I decided it was a good day to get out and plant my vegetable seeds and flowers! I took Tuesday off to have the day to myself and it was great! I sat in the sun and soaked up some vitamin D, planted my veggie seeds and flower seeds and also potted some flowers for the front step. I planted two different kinds of basil, cilantro, two different kind of tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, peas, green peppers and zucchini. I did it different this year and started seedlings in little jiffy pots. I hope they do better than last year. I love my flowers and gardening. It really does help my mood just to get outside and watch it all grow. Therapeutic!! Oh, I also made biscuits from scratch and we had strawberry shortcake. It was a hit!

I've been meaning to get out and take pictures of the old silo in the woods by our house but I always think the next time I drive by will be better. Last night was the night. I saw an area where the fence was down and the grass isn't too long now, so I took that opportunity with the kids in tow. The boys had fun running around and Brooke climbed the silo! Here is a little collage of some of my favorites.

The sunset in this same area the night before. I had to stop and snap a few!

That's about it for this week for now! I plan on going out and snapping some pics of the gigantic eagle nest (or, as I call it the "pterodactyl nest") sometime in the next few days. TTFN!