I love May

I love May because I get to hear how wonderful I am...a lot. And this info comes from someone other than myself! I try to tell myself I'm wonderful every day-how about you?!

I was going to do a long post about why May is so great but then I thought two posts would be more fun. This will be the shorter post, not because it is any less important just that it is a one day event.

Mother's day has evolved through the years around here. With both the kids married I don't get cold toast with peanut butter and a cup of cocoa anymore. Now I fix my own breakfast but get to still spend the day with those I care most about. We are still figuring out what the best solution is so all the moms involved get equal treatment. This year that meant the spouses spent time with their moms and Amy & Nick came here. Since Gabriele's mom ended up working, she got to come too. It was an event for the calendar because...Gary cooked dinner! He cooked me dinner once before we were married but I can't recall him doing it since. I am talking here about a main dish and extras. Nick was finishing up work and the girls and I were looking through magazines at the table in case Gary had questions-but he did it all.

Made salad, melted butter and added stuff for an awesome garlic/Parmesan bread, skewered shrimp and chicken, covered them in pesto and grilled them. YUMMO.

After dinner we all decided on a drive, so we got in the Jeep and headed out. Gary and I wanted to take them to this area where we think the houses are awesome. But we couldn't find it. That is what happens when you take too many photo drives-you can't remember where you have been. We did end up at the Bob's Red Mill site, which was closed. But Dave's Killer Bread was across the street so we went there. Got some awesome raisin bread too.

When we got home nobody was hungry yet and it was time for the kids to head out, so I packed some cake for them to take home and got a bunch of hugs. Love that!!

this is a mandarin cake made by Marsee's and available
at Zupan's and Fred Meyer at Grand.

a Mother's Day post

I am so lucky that in addition to the two children I gave birth to---I now have two more lovely children who round out the family...Gabriele-
and Karl-
and I say round out because my two- who have constantly been in front of a camera- goof off a lot when I want a "nice" photo.
Here is Amy trying to get Nick to smile...
but Nick likes to strike poses...
and Amy-well she has been doing this look for years!
Another pose...
an innocent look...
a funny look...
an eating look...
Amy hogging the spotlight...
an "I don't want to smile" look...
an "and you can't make me" look...
a "what" look...
again Amy??...
always goofing around...
a scary look...

And I have no idea where they get it from...
Hope your day is good...I'm looking forward to lunch with three of the kids!

an Easter remembrance

I had been asking for two weeks if the kids wanted to come over for Easter and nobody would answer me. Then on Good Friday when Nick and Gabriele were over after church, they said they really would like to come to our house on Sunday.

I love planning ahead so it felt a bit rushed to me to come up with a meal plan. I'm the only one who loves ham so the "traditional" meal was out. I didn't really want to do a lot of cooking either-so I settled on a chicken, orzo, fruit salad. It is yummy and I could make it ahead of time. I had some mini croissants I had picked up from the discount rack at Freddie's and frozen, so those came out. I made up some banana bread, deviled some eggs, checked the spreadable feta, made a dessert and we were set.

A little decoration to make it festive...Gary suggested an egg hunt but I said I didn't think that would fly!
The happy family waiting to start-
The dessert-dirt cake with peeps on top-

oh and then we played games for a few hours. And that story about the egg hunt...I told it and all three of the kids said "oh, that would have been fun." Guess I don't know them as well as I thought.