Thomas the train has two passenger cars: Annie and Clarabel. They look nearly identical. Gray knows which one is which by the name listed on their belly. See?

Liam carries him into the playground because he wants "up, Daddy". There are a ton of kids from two different classes playing outside. Gray gets into the mix right away.

We watch for a couple of minutes.

Then it's time to leave, so I get closer to him, lean down and give him a kiss. "I'll miss you all day".

Then Gray spots Liam, and he runs over to him arms stretched as wide as can be. A cue for an impending hug.

Liam gets a hug, and a kiss. Then I get a hug and a kiss.

Then we walk away. Gray yells out "Mama!", and blows me a kiss with his hand. Same to Daddy.

And we leave.

From our backyard.

Liam and I had our first date.

I had no idea then, that I would be here today.



I'm glad I am.

When you start from scratch on a new garden, it's hard to be patient.

Grow plants, grow!

But then some time passes, and if you're lucky enough to have pictures, you can make comparisons. Just a little water, and a bit of fertilizer every once in a while, time, and VOILA!

It's so simple.

Gray loves to go shopping in my closet for fun shoes to wear.

These are his favorites.







Red patent slingbacks, with a cork platform. Yup.

Whatever, they're shiny.

(Mostly blurry pictures courtesy of my phone. Sorry.)

I have a secret weapon that I've been using for a few months.

It helps me to make a healthy, from scratch dinner, almost every night. And I work full time.

Every week, I make a meal plan for the following week. It usually looks like this:



And from this plan, I make my grocery list:



We only buy what we need for the week, and Thursday is always leftovers night. This really works for us. And one of the best side effects of this practice is that I never come home from work and get asked "what's for dinner?". And this makes for a much happier Mama.

Being organized pays off!

Gray made me this at daycare.



He loved making this one so much, that he made a couple of others too. We got those a couple of days later, to avoid lessening the impact of this one, I suppose.

The day started with Gray wishing me a "happy mothers' day", and turning right around to wish Liam a "happy mothers' day" too. That was funny. By the end of the day it was called "monsters' day". And yes, that apostrophe belongs at the end, since it's a day for all mothers/monsters. Don't get me started on misuse of apostrophes. Oy.

Liam got us fresh bagels for breakfast with cream cheese, tomatoes and lox. Then when Gray had his 3 hour nap (YES!), I took a 2 hour nap myself. Oh it was soo good. We didn't get home until 11 last night, from Jen and Michael's wedding in Carmel. More on that later. AND! AND! While I was napping, LIAM CLEANED THE HOUSE. He called it "mom porn". He's right.

Then we all got up, got dressed, and went out to the mall where we bought some cupcakes from Sprinkles. And I used a store credit to buy some new curtains. Happy mothers' day to me!

Dinner was done all by Liam. Tandoori chicken on the barbecue, coconut rice and broccoli. The veg was not meant to coordinate. We just had it on-hand.

It looked like this:



We really enjoyed the chicken. And the day. And the weekend.

HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY!!