Happy Mother's Day 2010

Mother's Day is a tough one for me. Even though I am a mom and that role is now central to my identity, I still have such strong and fond memories of my mom, especially on Mother's Day, that I find myself trying still celebrating her on Mother's Day. I know I wouldn't be the mom I am without the mom I had. My fondest memory of Mother's Day growing up was the big brunch that my family hosted every year. It was a big group of extended friends and family, with the favorite brunch menu that they had crafted and perfected over many years. Green chile eggs, sticky cinnamon rolls, cheesy hashbrown potatoes, fruit salad, coffee cake, bacon and sausage cooked at the grill. There was juice for the kids and plenty of champagne for juice for the adults. I can still picture the warm spring days spent honoring the mothers in my life. That's what I've learned over time, especially since my mom died, Mother's Day is about celebrating the moms in your life.
I decided to celebrate Mother's Day this year with brunch, my favorite meal of any day, just one that you only seem to eat on special occasions. Enter one fantastically fantastic day...sleep in, get breakfast for the kiddies, make cinnamon rolls, take a long walk by myself, spend the day on the deck in the sun with my kids, take a nap (possibly induced my the champagne in the morning), cuddle in bed with the two yummiest kids ever. Really?!?! It was that good. Brunch at Todd's with Bridgette and her family, and their parents was delicious, of course. I was SPOILED by Todd and my kids who got me two new necklaces - one that says mom with a stone for each of my kids birth month and one from my favorite jewelry store The Golden Bear.
I couldn't ask for more as a mom - healthy, happy kids who make me smile everyday and having people in my life who make me a better mom everyday.

May Day at the beach

Todd and I enjoying Little Island Beach, Virginia

Tate and Avarie - happy beach babies

The fishing pier

Me and the kids

Avarie and Mommy

Avarie - aka Coppertone Baby

There's a lot to get used to in this new life of mine, but one thing I will happily get used to are the happy surprises...like Thursday evening when I had to gather some things for the kids and I for a quick trip to Virginia Beach! Spring in Virginia is fantastic and I think this has been the most beautiful spring since I've lived here - super warm, amazing flowers, and green green green! It makes you antsy for the pool to open and get into the summer swing. Well, the calendar still says May so we have a few weeks until we can enjoy the pool, but (yay!) we only live about an hour and a half from the beach. I missed the spring break trip to the beach with Bridgette and her family and Todd and his kids, and hadn't ever been to Virginia Beach. Todd surprised the kids and I with a quick trip to the beach to enjoy a little summer preview. We drove down Friday afternoon and stayed right at the center of Virginia Beach. We walked down the beach and watched the kids play on the playground by Neptune's statue, then enjoyed a FANTASTIC dinner at Catch 31, one of Gavin and Bridgette's favorite VA Beach spots. Great atmosphere - eating on the patio, a pound of steamed shrimp, and gazing out on the water. After dinner we headed to get some ice cream, but poor Avarie took her first big spill and tore her little knee open so we had to head back to the hotel instead. Saturday morning we drove about 20 miles south to what Todd called "the locals' beach" and enjoyed the OBX feel of Sandbridge and Little Island. It was BEAUTIFUL! We relaxed in the sun and played in the water with the kids. The water was a bit cold for swimming, but the kids splashed and played and giggled all day. We packed up in the late afternoon and headed home, with a quick stop at the outlets for new Crocs and dinner at Outback.
And now we've created a monster...because I know the beach is that great and that close...hmmmmmmm, what are we doing next weekend?!?!?

Mama Mia...It's Pizza Night!

I know every mom out there can agree that dinner time can be a real adventure sometimes. I am proud to say that I have two very good eaters who will try just about anything and eat all kinds of crazy things. I can't exactly pinpoint how this happened, but I am grateful every time I have a sushi craving and I know that my kids are more than happy to accompany me for some sticky rice and seaweed. That being said, they also like the good ol' childhood faves including pizza. Todd is a great cook (and I do pretty well too) and the kids all eat pretty much anything we serve, but we decided to indulge their wants and let them make their own pizzas this week. It was an easy dinner and they each got a chance to create what they wanted for dinner. An assembly line would have been too messy and someone would have gotten more cheese, or not enough sauce, or who knows what shortage might have occurred. We thought we were giving them each a chance to make a quick pizza but when they were finished, we smiled at each of their pizzas because it was so illustrative of each of their personalities. So the little girls went first and created a perfect cheesy masterpiece with 3 cute little pepperonis. As you can see, they ate more pepperoni than they put on their pizza. Tate was up next and got the sauce and cheese just perfect. But his pepperoni is arranged in a perfect circle with one in the middle. He likes things in order, arranged, and under control - everything has its place. Westin's sauce and cheese were a cinch, and he threw his pepperoni on like he was putting whipped cream on a sundae, and then a little more cheese on top of that. There is no rhyme or reason to it, it just is, which is how the rest of Westin is - if it's workin, let it work. Enzo went last which is a rarity for the oldest, or so I've been told. He wanted to see what the others had done, and created his pizza accordingly. He also arranged his pepperoni in what I would call a neat and organized way - 3 rows of 3. When we put them all together to put them in the oven, we stopped to make sure we would be able to tell the pizzas apart, because if there's one thing we've learned it's that they ALWAYS know whose is whose. We smiled and laughed when we leaned over to look at the pizzas and realized that telling them apart would be no problem, just like it's no problem to tell them apart in real life. Each with their own special talents, quirks and gifts. Pretty sure pizza night was a hit because there wasn't much left to take for lunch the next day.