My Day

Happy Mother’s Day!  As I write this, Kevin is curled up in bed with the girls watching TV.  Today, I’m off duty.  No kitchen cleaning, no kid watching, no diaper changing, no meal making.  Just a day to wander about and breath deep.  Ah Mother’s Day, how I love you!

So, you’re wondering about the loot, right?  Well, for starters, Kevin’s trip to Japan got postponed to Monday.  That was a big gift.  It may get pushed back even farther if things don’t untangle at work.   Last weekend, he took the girls to a ceramics place and had them paint me some hideous adorable plates that will clutter up my house for years to come.  He presented them to me cackling with glee.  At school, Leina made the adorable bee and flower craft.  I only managed to snap a few pictures before the kids devoured it.

It’s the most ingenious thing.  Just cookies with a hibachi stick through them and topped with a gum drop.  So totally doable and adorable.  Her teacher is simply amazing.

Kulia didn’t get to make a gift for me so she just gave me extra snuggles which, really, is all a mother ever wants.  Just look at these soft chubba cheeks.  Couldn’t you just nibble them?

And what, you ask, am I going to be doing today on my big free day?  Well, wandering spritely around the house gets old after a while.  So, I ran down to Sears yesterday and picked a little something up for myself.  It’s my sister’s fault really.  She recently got a new one and taunted me mercilessly about how cool it was and how I needed one too.  Drat you Suzy.  (And thank you too!)

Gus

I’m playing around with loading pictures using WordPress and having little luck.  Everything works when Kevin is here but when I try and do it myself, it gets all tangled up.  Sigh.  So I’m uploading these pictures the hard way because they are too cute to pass by.  Seriously.

Here is Leina holding puppy Gus.  She was so tickled to find a dog small enough for her to pick up and he was such a good sport to put up with it.

Kulia decides she wanted in on the action too.  She kept sneaking closer and closer to Leina as I took the pictures.  So here she is, mopped head and all, posing with Gus.

This was a few weeks ago so I’m sure by now Gus is giant and unable to be picked up by small hands.   Lucky dog!

Mats – Check

I’m not an easy person to present shop for.  I like what I like and I’m not a fan of random clutter/useless junk.  I’m a big fan of gift cards or something homemade but stuff? Well, it just doesn’t float my boat.  After years and years and years of searching for the perfect present, Kevin has finally discovered it.  Time.  Yes, more than anything else, I crave time.  Time to myself.  Time to do what I want when I want without having to lug around a diaper pack and a bag of fishies.  Time to stroll through stores and eat at places that don’t offer chicken fingers.  Time.

Sure, I get to leave the house on weekends alone but I’m usually running errands and somewhere in the back of my mind I’m watching the clock aware of the fact that I have to get back home to clean house/fold laundry/cook/parent.  So Kevin has devised the ingenious plan of sending me off for a long weekend away from being a mother as a present.  This year, for my birthday, he sent me down to Ashland.  I took with me that which I needed most.  My sewing machine and Kat.  ‘Cause I don’t think I would want to do that looooong drive alone!  We stayed in a little old house two blocks from downtown Ashland.  We sewed, shopped, ate, talked, and watched all our favorite movies.  The weather was beyond beautiful and we could eat on outside patios beneath shade trees.  Ah, perfect.  Just perfect!

For my project, I took with the me Carla’s birthday present.  It turned out to be a bit more involved than I thought so I just now finished it.  A little late but I don’t think she’ll mind.  I saw this pattern in a catalogue and new I had to make it.  It’s a set of quilted placemats made from a line of fabric from Connecting Threads.  I love the little pocket in front for the matching napkin and silverware.  Take a peek!

Now wouldn’t you love to sit down at this table for a nice meal?

Bloated

Kevin is still here.  Yippee!  Things are delayed so his trip has been pushed back for a bit.  He has no idea what is happening so we are living day by day which is fine by me.

Today Liza and her girls came over for a play date.  It was actually nice enough that they could play outside for a bit.  I think I’m going to start working on the yard this weekend.  I have tons of weeding and cleaning up now that spring his finally here.  I hope.  With my luck it will start hailing again.

For lunch with the girls I decided to make a loaf of fresh bread.  I am a big fan of the no knead bread so I whipped a batch together last night and this morning I left it on the counter to rise.  Since we were out of milk, I loaded up the girls and we did a quick Safeway run before Liza arrrived.  When we got home, we were greeted with a horrible sight.  Corn meal was strewn about the kitchen floor.  My giant ball of dough was nowhere to be seen, and Artie was curled up in a miserable guilty ball whining.  Yup.  He ate the entire ball of uncooked bread dough.  I can only imagine what his stomach feels like right now.  Can too much yeast hurt a dog?  I dunno but we are going to find out.

The entire batch of dough, gone.  What am I going to do with this dog????

Can I Return It?

Kevin came home for lunch today and announced that he has to go on another business trip.  This time, he’s heading for Germany.  He doesn’t know when he’s going but informed me that every day he’s here past Tues is “a gift.”  And all I could think was, “huh, can I return that?”

He’s only been home 10 days and now he’s off again.  When does he leave? Dunno.  How long? Dunno.  But he’s definitely leaving sometime next week.  Ah well, maybe he’ll remember to pick me up something cool from Germany.  This last time he brought me back a package of curry mix from Japan.  With all the directions in Japanese.  Two weeks of wandering around the city and all he found for me was some curry mix.  Humph.  He better step it up this time.  Germany is full of cool stuff, right?  Well, I guess Kevin will find out next week….