Family Alive

Well, I took my own advice and kept my expectations low for Sunday.  And you know what?  It was a fabulous day.  I got to sleep in (albeit a tiny bit, since we were going to early church).  At church, they gave the moms huge, chocolate dipped strawberries.  Our lunch plans with Toones were scrapped because they were a little worried about Josiah’s germs (though he was 100% by Saturday morning).  Oh well… that meant I didn’t have to cook and clean for company 🙂 Brian scrapped his plans to ride home from church, and joined us to go to the mall to ride the escalator, elevator and the carousel and let the kids get Happy Meals while we had Panera.  Fun for all!   Brian helped the kids cut flowers from the yardfor me and paint canvases I’ve wanted to hang in the entryway with their handprints.  They aren’t exactly what I had imagined, but hey… the kids did it, and I didn’t have to clean up, so they’re beautiful 🙂   It was just a lovely, relaxed day with my beautiful, much beloved family.

Funny story… Saturday while Brian was riding, I was trying to figure out something to do to break up the day.  I’d seen a sign at the grocery store that kids could decorate cookies for mom, so we headed over there.  Analise and I had a long discussion about who the decorated cookies would be for.  She was NOT into the idea of decorating them for me or Grandma.  We had a bit of a heated discussion about “giving”, and I ended up telling her she could find a cookie for herself when we were done.

When we arrived, we found it was not cookies, but CAKES to decorate for $7.50 .  Huh.  Well, before I could stop her… and really, how could I stop her?  She was so gung-ho to decorate something!  (And I was going to get $7 worth of coupons with the cake, so that sold me!)  She ran on up, picked the little sign for her cake, and grabbed a huge, unwieldy frosting bag.  The tips were so tiny, it was nearly impossible for even me to get anything to come out.  And the young guy running the show was asking, “What do you want to write for your mommy?  How about ‘I love you’?”  I’m thinking, hm… she is just now writing her name with a pencil, and you’re expecting ‘I Love You’ with a frosting bag?!?

She squeezes out a tiny little bit before the head bakery guy comes and swaps the tips so it comes out a bit more easily.  A crowd gathered to watch her intense work at making little squiggles and lines with comments like, “They’ll put you to work in the bakery, you’re doing so well!”  I had my hands full keeping an energetic Josiah from knocking over the long table of cakes, poking the frosting on Analise’s cake, and touching all the tips on the other frosting bags.  What a boy!  I had to laugh as we checked out and the kids were dancing around, feeling all the puffy bags of chips, pretending to eat the treats in the checkout line.  Here I was, juggling the kids to make my own Mother’s Day cake.  How funny!

The cake was YUMMY and my sweeties gave me a good photo to remember my lovely day!

All the sweetness I need! How blessed I am!