Mother's Day

Mother's Day was pretty low key this year. Which is to be expected when you have a barely 6 week old baby. Our plans were a lot of "Well...depending on how the day is going..." not to mention the weather and the thousands of other things that can make a day crazy. Then, to top everything off, I came down with the biggest, baddest case of strep throat I have ever had in my life. Late Thursday my throat felt a little scratchy and Friday I felt pretty yucky all day long. Luckily my kids are entertained by the TV (big kid) and the ceiling fan (little kid) as John was having a hard time getting away from work. Late Friday night, it became clear this was more than just a spring cold and I was going to have to go in to Urgent Care when they opened Saturday morning. Tests confirmed I would be spending time on Mother's Day with strep throat* - not my favorite gift to get for sure!

By Sunday morning, I was no longer contagious and I was feeling much better. Not great, but better. The kids gave me (and John) the gift of sleeping until 8am! It felt wonderful to get such a big chunk of sleep, especially when I needed it so much. We particiapted in one of my favorite activities for a few minutes (all of us in bed together reading books and watching cartoons) before getting ready for church.

William waiting for breakfast by copying Amelia
Look at us! We're all dressed and ready to go! Mama and her two kids
William is so proud to be a big helper! A big thank you to Grandma for William's outfit and to Aunt Kaye for Amelia's outfit

What precious gifts we have! We have a lot to be thankful for!

Kisses for baby sister

After church, John cooked up some pancake lunch for us and then spent the rest of the day trying to get us caught up on laundry and other chores. It was a big relief not to have to start Monday morning with Mt Laundry waiting for me along with some of the other chores he cleared up.

The only real tradition we have with Mother's Day is taking a picture of the kids in front of Grandma Heidt's tree in our front yard. This is the tree we received at John's mom's funeral and we planted it in our front yard in her memory. It is a way for us to remember how special she was on this day and start to talk about her as a person with our kids. It is also fun to see how much the kids (and tree have grown every year. For previous years look here or here)

Amelia sitting patiently by the tree

Little tree, little girl
Smiling big kid, little kid, tree.

It is a lot of work to get him to stay under the tree AND smile...you don't want to know what I had to do!
Silly Billy
A different angle. Same kids, same trees
This one actually is pretty good! Miracle!
Amelia did NOT like the wind blowing on her...she kept putting her arms up
Then to top things off, we went to get some fajitas at Chilli's on Monday night (everybody together: Mmmmmmmmmmmm fajitas!). This picture is taken as this is the first time we've been highchair-less and booster chair-less. William did a pretty good job, although we didn't linger over our meal.

*I've talked with both our doctor office and the pediatrician's office about the kids. Strep throat is very rare in children under two years. Both kids are healthy and we are supposed to wash our hands a lot as well as monitor their behavior. If they run temps, act fussy/tired/sick, or change eating/sleeping patterns we are to bring them in. Otherwise, we are just laying low until I feel better. No reason to try and get strep swabs from either of them unless we absolutely have to.