Mother's Day Weekend

On Saturday evening we gathered at Lori's house (hence JoJo is in this picture) to celebrate with our mom.

We had shredded pork sandwiches, fruit, salad, chips and queso and Carmelitas for dessert.

Landon did homework upstairs and Whitney and the Maher girls played a game downstairs (Robyn's kids weren't there).

Robyn and her boyfriend came a little late, but her kids were with Jared.

Adam and Amy's girls all made cards for my mom, which was mighty sweet.

My mom cried when she opened the card I made for her (victory is mine).

Here's a better look.

After church on Sunday we braved the cold wind to take our traditional Mother's Day photos. Landon had already changed out of his church clothes so I had him put his shirt and tie back on, and I put on flip flops (I didn't wear those to church).

It is super difficult to get any sort of decent photo because of all the silliness involved.

More weirdness.

Can you see that Whitney is pretending to lick me, ew.

Pretty much we end up with a shot like this.

Landon grabbed my phone and took a bunch of pictures of the two of us, this is my best angle.

Things came to a screeching halt when we went inside and Whitney had me read this poem she wrote for me out loud. I know she was going for funny, but it pretty much crushed my soul. I ended up crying for a little while and then took a long nap. I'm not a fan of Mother's Day because there's just too much emotion going on for me.

Landon made me this Jimmy Fallon-theme card and wrote a bunch of thank yous to be read like Jimmy reads his thank you notes on the show.

I Need Therapy

I've decided I need to face the fact that I'm having some sort of passage-of-time crisis these days rather than feeling bewildered every time I tear up after looking at old photos or talking about Landon going to Junior High this fall. (Note to self: Keep it Together Man!) I have held steady and gone with the flow (can you do both at the same time?) for most of the kids' childhoods, but now I feel like time is accelerating (possibly because it is so rudely showing on my face) and their 18 years of childhood are almost over! (They're not really, but it feels that way since we're moving into the next phase.)


The salt in the wound today occurred since I was back in action at my mom's house today after a 2 week break to continue sorting, dating, labeling and containing years of family photos. We have made so much progress since starting in January, but every time I think we've made a substantial step we find more photos to go through! I'd discovered a gap in photos from 2003-2007, but my mom located a box full of photos and another full photo album, so the mystery was solved.


Trying to date all the photos has been quite a challenge for us, and has been based mostly on who was a baby at the time. My tip for any and everyone who ever prints a photo is to date it immediately, and save yourself the hassle and feelings of dementia that will surely follow if you don't.

Need I say more?

We found a lot of photos from Landon's first year of life (he was the first grand child on my side of the family and my parents lived in Maryland when he was born) so my heart got a workout today. He was a painfully cute baby (if I do say so myself) and the time of his babyhood just flew by. Must stop...heart hurts...can't take it much longer...

Our lunch break proved replenishing and well timed.

Our self-portrait for the day.

I left my mom's house at 2:00 so I'd be able to visit with Amie for a half hour before she had to go pick up James from school. She was putting on her make-up while we talked (complained/blubbered), which was fascinating since she seems to have a magical touch with her mascara application.


We took a self-portrait before I had to leave and though I'm going through such a heinous period, I'm dedicated to documenting the good, the bad and the ugly on my blog, so here it is. Seriously, what color is my skin? Do I need an intervention?

**What triggers life-melancholia for you?
Do you go with the flow with aging?
Are you good about labeling photos?
Do you have a trick for long lashes?**

Comment Window Tidbit: I always think I'm not very emotional, but that really doesn't seem to be the case does it?

Sun Soaked

On Wednesday, the kids and I picked Lucas and Eva up for a day at the pool. Michelle had come home from girl's camp for the day to celebrate Max's 14th (wow!) birthday with a party of friends and had asked me to help out with Eva. It was a bonus for us that Lucas wanted to come because that made it way more fun for Landon and Whitney (we thought he might want to stay for the party).


We took several self-portraits in the car, but this was the best one. It's tricky with 5 people, especially when 4 of them are kids.


Before going to the pool we stopped off at Smart Cookie to use the free cookie coupons we had gotten from the walk-a-thon at school. They were going to expire on the 30th and we had 4 of them so this worked out well. Surprisingly (or maybe not) Eva did NOT want a cookie. She said she'd already had lunch and that she didn't feel like having a cookie (what the?).


She seemed to have forgotten all about being full from lunch (which I don't think she'd actually had) not long after we got to the pool. We had only packed a stack of Oreos, a partial bag of chips and a box of crackers (what were we thinking?!) but she was very happy with those.


I hardly saw the bigger kids except for a couple towel breaks when we were all kicked out of the pool so they could test the chlorine levels (and encourage people to go to the bathroom).

Landon and Lucas are always great together.

During the 2:00 break the bigger kids went to get snow cones for all of us, so Eva and I were hanging out at our little towel camp.


She borrowed Whitney's sun glasses, but had a hard time managing them since they were too big. It was fun seeing her in this darling bathing suit that used to be Whitney's!


This photo of Whitney from summer 2003 just hurts my heart. Could she be any cuter? She wasn't even 3 yet when she wore this suit, and Eva is already 4!


The kids returned with our snow cones 35 minutes after getting in line! I don't know if there was only one person working or what, but that was some serious dedication and commitment.

I just like this photo.

Eva and I spent about 4 hours (except for maybe 20 minutes in the Lazy River) in the kiddie pool. She was super cautious in the beginning and not keen on people splashing (ha), but gradually warmed up to things and had fun.

I saw multiple friends from church there (and just tried not to think about the horror of them seeing me in my swim get-up) and ran into blogging friend Jenny and got to talk to her for awhile.

It was a very quiet (as in no talking) car ride home since we were all exhausted from being at the pool for 5 hours. Eva fell asleep right away, which was good because she had been campaigning to go play at our house and I feared she wouldn't handle hearing "no" for an answer very well. Instead it all worked out great.

**Do you have to psych yourself up to
wear your bathing suit in public?
Would you stand in line for 35 minutes for a snow cone?
Does seeing photos from when your
kids were tiny hurt your heart?**