Mother's Day 2013

As we do with most Sunday holidays, we celebrated Mother's Day on Saturday so that we could do so together as a family (Doug works all day on Sundays).  At breakfast, Koen got to give me his homemade gift from school.  He has been dying to tell me what it was all week.  He brought it up at least once a day (do you know where I hid it? do you know what it is?).  Koen also got to take the pictures of me opening it himself (hence the blur).

I took a picture later of his card and the personalized mug.  So sweet.  He was so proud of himself!

While I hung out with Penn and got ready for the day, Doug and the boys had some creative card-making time.  Doug is so hilariously clever.  Check out these big cards I received with love notes inside.  I love being the only girl for all this little boy love!

Doug had planned about a month ago to have a Mother's Day brunch with our friends, Nate, Megan (the boys' godparents) and their boys, Alex and Andy.  It was a nice, relaxed morning of catching up, letting the boys play and enjoying delicious food.  This picture is quite impressive.  Every kid is looking at the camera (Penn was napping).  Thanks for the yummy meal, Douglas!

Koen snapped a picture of Megan and I with our littlest guys.  Not bad!  Happy Mother's Day, Megan.  I loved celebrating it with you and your family!

Nate, Megan and their boys headed out around noon.  Koen had actually felt under the weather all morning and totally fell into a fever during the brunch, so he stayed home with Penn and I while Doug and Tav braved the potential rain and chilly weather to visit the Friendship Folk & Flower Festival before naptime.  While there they picked up our vegetable seedlings for the year.  Then in the afternoon Doug worked against the clock (and the rain clouds) to do yet even more yardwork.  Doug loves working outside and he is so productive out there.  Here's some of what he did for us yesterday afternoon.  Transplanted the hydrangeas because they needed more afternoon shade (this is just one of five)...

He planted the tomato seedlings...

And the zucchini plants.

He also mulched, treated the grass (clover is taking over!) and some other odd jobs to get things checked off his list.  He worked right up until a few minutes before we left to go to an evening at our friends' place.  We don't head out of the city often for a family evening, but the drive up to the Wexford area was totally worth it for an evening with our dear friends, Dave and Linda and their three girls.  We met them when Doug first started at the church and we were in the same small group for several years.  Back then, their youngest was about Tavin's age.  It's crazy how fast time flies!  Their youngest is now a freshman in high school.  Their girls were so sweet to the boys.  Right when we got there we got the boys outside to feed the fish.

They also have a great tree swing that Koen was brave enough to try out (despite the fact he was battling his fever still even on Tylenol!).  Alexa was his helper and they had fun together.  So neat to see our kids interacting with Dave and Linda's awesome girls.

Tavin enjoyed rolling through the grass.  He was quite the mover, so this is the only action shot I caught.

Their backyard is so lovely, I had to try for a picturesque picture of the 3 boys (despite their haphazard/sloppy outfits).  We didn't exactly get a winner, but at least the 3 of them are in a picture together. 

While Koen and Tavin played, Doug and I got some Penn time.  Here's a few self-pointing pics that turned out quite well (maybe I should try this with the pics of all 3 boys at once!).

We had an amazing dinner (Linda is a phenomenal cook!).  She didn't let me even bring a thing (my mother's day gift from her) and it was great to just enjoy their company, the food and the boys.  Koen, Tavin and Penn did great.  The little guys went down at their normal bedtimes and then Koen went to bed after the first period of the hockey game.  We stayed until about 10:30pm, woke up the boys, strapped them into the car and laid them back down around 11:15pm.  They went right to sleep and didn't have an issue.  What a great end to a wonderful Mother's Day!!