And Happy Mother's Day to You, Too!

When this weekend started, I thought it was going to be. . .

-cloudy and rainy the entire time.
-a lot of work.
-a lot of runnng around.
-not much of a weekend.

Boy, was I wrong!!!

Five years ago, I had no idea I would become a mother.  Ever.  We had not started our adoption process and I was still firmly in the grips of the "I'm happy as we are" mode.  Wow.  What a difference five years makes! 

Four years ago, we were in the process but had not even heard about Aidan yet. 

Three years ago, I celebrated my first ever Mothers Day.  Wow.  Did I tell you that things had changed???  Boy have they!

We have had a crazy busy weekend, but it's been good.  Really good.

This is my weekend of house cleaning and somehow, even though Pat is on the midnight shift and I had exclusive Aidan duty, I managed to finish my house work by noon yesterday.  Including laundry!  Aidan and I then ran a couple of errands and then played outside.  Today, while Pat slept, we went to Costco and then to our last Hockey lesson (Mini Mites--team hockey--starts next month).  Aidan skated great-probably the best he's ever skated, and had an awesome lesson.

Grandma and Grandpa came over for awesome steaks, potatoes and salad from the garden.  It did NOT rain and was really the perfect afternoon.  Aidan was wonderful at dinner, which was also really good.  The only fly in the ointment was Aidan complaining of a tummy ache about half way through and then needing to go lay down for a while. . .hope that's nothing!

When Grandma and Grandpa arrived (courtesy of Pat and Aidan) a beautiful bouquet of Yellow Roses (my absolute favorites!) arrived with them. . .thank you Grandpa!!!!

Pat cleared the table, with a little help from me, and did the dishes (thank you honey!!) and then we settled down for some Turtle Pie and gifts.  Aidan brought me a wonderful red bag and said I should enjoy my samage!!  LOL!!!   (Massage)

Red Door Salon does the most awesome Spa Pedicure. . .I love getting the massage and the Spa Pedicure combination and my gift card will cover that exactly. . .I think I now know what I'll do with that unscheduled half day of vacation I have!!  

And so, I wish you all a Happy Mother's Day.  May we all enjoy our children even more each year!

Thursday Things. . .

You might think the funny little sayings would end when the little ones grow into bigger little ones.  They don't.  Here are a couple that have me smiling still:

We were driving down the road, on the way to his Daycare, when we spotted Daddy's bucket truck in the parking lot by Roy Rogers.  An excited Aidan, "LOOK!!!  THERE"S DADDY'S GREEN BUCKET TRUCK!!!"  Being the good Mama I am, I pulled the Tahoe over into the parking lot so Aidan could see his Daddy.  Aidan was ecstatic, needless to say. 

After spending a few minutes talking and laughing and exclaiming about seeing the bucket truck, we were back on our way.  While pulling back into the traffic of King Street, I heard my young son say from the backseat, "I'm rockin' it today Mama!"  : )

And then, this morning, we were driving down King Street when we spied the Green John Deere tractor that usually is parked in the park across the street.  It had a mower attached.  Aidan yelled out excitedly, "LOOK!!!  THE GREEN JOHN DEERE TRACKTOR!!!"  Yes, that's right.  "Where's he goin' Mama???"  I believe down that way.  (Pointing West on the Rt. 7 Bypass).  "No way, dude!  He's going that way!"  (Pointing East on the Rt. 7 Bypass.)  Did you just call me "Dude?"  Big grin and a nod 'yes.'  Hmmmmmm. . ..  : )

And so, here were are.  A little more than a week before he turns five and I am already faced with the daunting prospect of. .  .a new language to learn.  Kid language. . .  : )  Life could be worse!

In other news:

*we are absolutely devestated that the Caps are out of the Play Offs now.  We had such hopes!  But, there is always next year.  They really could have been so much more this year. . .
*we are now up to 19 children for Aidan's birthday party.  Tomorrow is the RSVP deadline so I expect a few more.
*we are finally getting some nice weather, Thanks be to God!!!  70 degrees today.  Yeah!  We will be getting our new roof soon. . .to replace the one damaged by all of the storms we've been having.
*I have been personally invited to a Mother's Day Tea at Aidan's School for tomorrow.  Can't wait to go!

A Week's Worth of News and Updates!

The problem with only blogging once a week is that now I have tons to catch up on! 

Let me start by my beautiful Lillies I bought for Easter!

They were some beautiful buds on Easter Day and are now, a week later, blooming beautifully!  : )  Well, Easter is a season. . .

Speaking of flowers, my tulips and daffodils are finished but I noticed yesterday that I have several buds on my Clematis vines, buds on my rose bushes and buds on my Peonies.  It's going to be beautiful and flowery around here in a couple of weeks!  I really need to get out there and work in the gardens to make them even prettier.

Melissa, blog owner of http://themiddlethatcounts.com/ mentioned a few weeks ago that she had had her blog printed into a couple of books.  After playing around with the site, I finally had my first two years printed and they have arrived!!!



I will need to do 2010 later this summer, after I save my lunch money, but I'm so excited about the first two!!  The site http://www.blog2print/.com is really simple to use and allows you to upload whatever picture you want for the front and back covers.  You can make the title whatever you want as well: I did Bringing Aidan Home for the first one and Adventures with Aidan-2009 for the second one.  I will continue with 2010, 2011, and so on.  What is especially nice is that the pictures and blog posts really chronicle Aidan coming home, the cute things he has said along the way, and his subsequent growth.  I hope/think he'll like and appreciate this later in his life, especially because his Mama does not scrapbook!!  I plan to insert the hair, birthday invitations and award certificates I have saved and as they come along.  One thing I wish I'd thought of before was about the editing.  This site does not allow you to edit after you upload the blog.  So, any editing needs to happen before.

Speaking of books, I am about 3/4 of the way through Travels in Siberia.  I've really been enjoying it.  I have laughed over so many of the descriptions of Siberia that the author has said because it was exactly that way.  On Russia in general, he even mentions the strange custom of clapping the hands when the plane lands.  Other than the smell of Russia that he mentions, he also talks a lot about the monuments and the crumbling Soviet era buildings.  It is something to think about.  There is a lot of money in Moscow, but not much is getting out into the Eastern portions of the country.  He only spent one day in Krasnoyarsk but did enjoy walking along Prospekt Mira, a street Pat and I walked at least once or twice a day for nearly three weeks.  Boy did I recognize his descriptions of that street!!!  And the funny habit of the girls wearing skin tight jeans and stilletto heals everywhere they walked. . .how do they do that???

Our community had a yardsale yesterday.  A friend of mine and I set up our wares on our yard and did a little business.  A very little bit of business!  I made about $5.00 and she made about $10.  It was the first nice Saturday this spring, so everyone was at Home Depot, where we found them all after the yardsale was over.  I think we will try again right before school starts in August--we made a lot more last August.

I know Spring is really here, with Summer around the corner, because we got our pool pass forms last week!  I have filled out the form and sent it in to our HOA in order to get our 2011 sticker and guest passes.  Woo Hoo!

Another big sign of Spring are the storms we have been having.  Whew!  What a ride they have been!  Torrential rain, heavy lightening and thunder and intense winds.  Yes, even a tornado or two.  Easter Sunday afternoon and Wednesday morning were incredibly bad.  So bad that we have had to make a claim about our roof-storm damage.  Although our roof is only 12 years old, I think it will need to be replaced. 

Finally, we are in the final two weeks of preparing for Aidan's fifth birthday.  I can't believe he's going to be five!!  His party is all set for the 14th and so far we will have 10 children--although this number will likely increase by at least 10 or more by next Friday when the rest of the RSVP's come in.  The party will be at the Ice Rink again.  Pizza and cake followed by a 1/2 hour lesson and then an hour to skate.  It will be fun!  Shhhhh!  Don't tell!  We got him the inline Hockey skates so he can skate around on the pipe stem and play street hockey and Grandma and Grandpa got him the pads and shorts for his ice hockey lessons.  He will be soooo excited!!  The day of the party we will probably go to Roy Rogers for dinner (his choice) and then on his actual birthday, we will go to Blue Ridge Grill (also his choice!) for a nice steak and celebrate with just family.  It's going to be fun!

That's it for now.  I'll try to update ins smaller increments through out the week.  : )

Аллилуйя! Христос Повышен! Он Повышен действительно!

Аллилуйя! Христос Повышен! Он Повышен действительно.

Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!  He is Risen indeed!

Whew!  What a weekend!!!  After church on Friday, I picked Aidan up  a little early (in the usual torrential downpouring rain!).  The teachers had turned the children into Easter Bunnies complete with ears and face painting. . .adorable!!

I would hazard a guess that you haven't seen too many Easter Bunnies wearing camoflage hoodies!!

We decided to go out to dinner, so after I cleaned the upstairs, back out into the chilly rain we went.  Really, folks, it was maybe 45 degress!  It was so cold that we all got super chilled on the way back to the car after dinner and promptly came home and turned the heater back on in the house!  Brr!!!!

Saturday was better.  After finishing the housework and doing the Easter dinner prep work, we were able to play outside a bit. . .until the Caps game. . .which they won!!!!  Now on to round 2!!!

Our Easter tradition is to placed the dyed eggs in the empty Easter basket and place it outside on the deck along with a bowl of carrots (for the Bunny, of course!)  After Aidan goes to bed, the basket is retrieved and the eggs hidden in the basement frig.  The basket is then filled and left on the kitchen table to be found in the morning along with the remains of the carrots.  This year, it had started to sprinkle when I retrieved the basket.  When I came back upstairs from taking the eggs down there was a deluge of rain happening outside!  5 minutes later and the basket and eggs would have been floating away!!!

Sunday dawned beautifully.  It was a wonderful and warm day.  Perfect for celebrating the resurrection!!  Aidan came downstairs to find a huge basket full of goodies.  He and I headed off to church in our Sunday finery and then came home to hang out outside.  Daddy got home about 3:00 and then Grandma and Grandpa came over with Aunt B and UB for dinner.  Of course, their travels to our house ended up being a bit perilous due to the immense summer like thunderstorm that came through!  Seriously, that sky was looking a bit green!  But, it cooled the air from the crazy 87 degrees (remember it was 45 on Friday???) back down to a more seasonal 70 degrees.  But, we'll be back up there again today!  Weird weather. 

And so, I will leave you with a Happy Easter wish and some pictures of our day.

7 Last Words of Jesus

Today is Good Friday.  As is my usual practice, I spent the afternoon at church attending a service devoted to observing the Three Holy Hours. . .the three final hours of Jesus' life on earth as a human.  Today's service, as per usual, provided some excellent observations and meditations on the day: the 7 last words of Jesus.   I will humbly try to recreate some of my thoughts on those meditations.

"Woman, behold your son. . .behold your mother"  This was not necesarrily the first of Jesus' last words, but as a mother, it feels important.  Jesus is talking to his mother, Mary.  And to the youngest beloved disciple, John.  He tells Mary to behold John as her son and that John should behold Mary as his mother.  John obeys Jesus and takes her into his home.  This implies obediance to all God tells us to do. 

"Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."  Jesus asks God to forgive everyone who is mocking him, taunting him, forgetting God.  He knows that forgiveness comes first and then a change can occur.  He also knows that forgiveness does not mean that we forget.   Hmmm. . .that could be a problem!

"Today, you will be with me in Paradise."  Truly, does God ever say anything to us when we rant at him, scream at him?  To set the scene, Jesus has been crucified and people are ranting, mocking, sneering at him.  He's been beaten, scourged, and a crown of thorns on his head.  He is naked with nails drvien through his wrists and ankles.  He is in betwen two theives.  One says to him " You're the Messiah, save yourself!"  The other one, coming to his defense, says, "He has done nothing!  He is not like us!  We deserve this, he doesn't!"  To everything that came before, Jesus was silent.  To the last statement he says, "Today, you will be with me in Paradise."  We should remember this. 

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  This is where Jesus shows his humanity.  Who among us have not had a moment of doubt where we feel bereft?  Abandoned?  Forsaken?  Surely Jesus felt this 10 fold compared to what we meager humans ever feel and yet he only questioned it one time.  And only for a moment.

"I thirst."  Jesus has been betrayed and abandoned by his friends.  He is hungry for companionship.  Thirsty for friends.  We all feel this at times.  We feel alone.  We feel afraid.  We're thirsty for others who understand.  And yet, God knows.  He's been there.

"It is finished."  What is "it"?  Most of us have had an English professor who told us to cross out all "it" in our papers and then re-write them.  But, what is "it"?  Is it Jesus' life?  But that continues because of the Resurrection!  Is it the story?  But, the story is not over!  Hmmm. . .what is "it"?

"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."  He gave it all back.  Can we do that?

7 times He speaks.  And 7 times we are amazed at what He says.

Why is this night different from every other night?

Because we were slaves.  And now we are no longer slaves.

Thanks be to God.