My 4th Mother's Day Weekend

Here's a recap of my fourth Mother's Day weekend.

FRIDAY:

Sam left Friday morning for a conference in Boston. Thank you Siam Conference on Optimization! I had my 32 week OB appointment, which was uneventful other than everything is going well and "see you in two weeks!" At lunch, there was a great moment: Peter ate a raw carrot! The boy who has never liked anything, especially veggies, finally ate the carrot I put on his plate. All be it a baby carrot, it was still consumed without any encouragement, which made me so happy. I took it as a small Mother's Day gift from Peter!

I spent the rest of Friday making a castle out of a huge cardboard box for the kids. I'm not sure why and how I got the inspiration and energy to do such a project, but just went with it. Peter was so excited about the castle. He even said, "I can't wait to show Lily our new castle!" Lily is literally the girl next door who was coming over with her mom for dinner. Talk about pressure! I taped the last piece together right when the doorbell rang at 5pm! The kids and the mommies had McDonald's for dinner, then the kids had playtime for about an hour or so while the moms relaxed. The castle has a hit, especially when I decided to bring out the box of 64 crayons and told the kids to decorate the castle. It was great. After a short walk around the neighborhood, the kids went to bed as smooth as French silk pie. Wish I had a slice of that pie right now! Oh, I'm SO pregnant!

Here is Natalie modeling their castle and showing the gate feature:

SATURDAY:

I got the kids up and out by 9am. We took a stroll through the Iowa City Farmer's Market. My goal was to find some chocolate zucchini bread, which I did find and bought two loaves. I got a few little items as well as this beautiful, fragrant bunch of lilacs for only $2! What a deal and yet another little Mother's Day gift for myself.

Another little gift from Peter was a 90-minute nap upon returning home from our trip to the market and Wal-Mart. Natalie and I had our little time together playing in the castle and vegging together on the couch watching "Colors Everywhere" episode of Blue's Clues. Saturday was mostly uneventful except for the fact that Peter's nap defeated any hopes of an early night. He stayed up goofing around in their room til past 9pm. He constantly told me "But Mommy, I'm not tired". I'm fairly certain I fell asleep before he did.

SUNDAY: HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

This could also be called my Super Mom day. The day started gloomy, with high winds and rain. I woke up at 7am to the sounds of Peter and Natalie already at play in their room. I made a pancake, eggs, & bacon breakfast for us all. The kids and I got bathed and dressed in time to get to church by 10am. God gave me a special gift in the form of a parking spot straight across the street from St. Wenceslaus church! Thank you! The kids and I survived mass through the end of communion. Upon walking back to our seats from communion, Peter and Natalie proceeded to walk past our pew and straight to the front door. I took it as a sign that was all the kids were going to handle.

We went straight to Sears where we got our pictures taken together. I've always wanted to have pictures of the kids with me, and what more of a perfect day to get them done. The session went smoothly and quickly, and the pictures turned out great. I can't wait to get them! We ended our morning outing with lunch at IHOP.

I decided on the way home that I wanted to enjoy a warm cup of coffee from Starbucks. As I pulled up to the drive-thru, I heard Peter say "I want to come too. Can I? Can I?" I told him I was just going through the drive-thru. By the time I got my coffee, Peter was fast asleep! Natalie also fell asleep by the time I pulled into our garage!

Peter took yet another nap today - lasting 2 hours! I thought Natalie was also napping, but when I checked an hour into the "nap", I found her quietly sitting on the floor of their room playing with My Little Pony. She gave me the biggest smile and whispered "Peter sleeping on your bed" - which he was doing at the time! Again, Natalie and I had some one-on-one time.

After a simple dinner of grilled cheese, chips, and bananas, we took a walk around the block. The kids absolutely love our walks. We passed a yard that was a field of dandelions. Most people would find it an eye sore, but the kids thought it was a garden to pick flowers for Mommy! :) Natalie gave one to me and said "Make a wish!" My heart just melted.

We wrapped up the evening with a movie night featuring Toy Story with the couch pulled out as a bed. The kids really like staying up later and watching the movie. As you can see, Natalie always takes a moment to strike a pose for the camera while Peter is well into the movie!

Where I got the energy to do all this in one day I will never know. I'm just so happy I got to spend "my" day with Peter and Natalie, the ones who made me a mom.

Mall of America - Here we come!

We took a road trip to Bloomington, Minnesota on Friday May 2nd. Our goals were to see the Mall of America and maybe some sights around Minneapolis. In the end, we only had energy and time for the Mall of America area, but it was a lot of fun for all.

We arrived Friday evening and went straight to the Rainforest Cafe in the MOA. Peter and Natalie were excited about all the animals in the restaurant. Peter seemed to really like the alligator (or was it a crocodile) in the front of the gift shop.

Natalie was more interested in the 'nicer' animals of the rainforest, like this butterfly.

Cha-cha, the frog, was making visits around people waiting for a table (like us). It almost felt like we were at an amusement park!

By the time we got our table, it was past the kids' normal bedtime (8pm). The inside of the restaurant was even more stimluating with the occasional flashing lights to simulate a thunderstorm, gorillas on the walls coming to life, and the constant announcement when some table ordered their special molten lava dessert - "Volcano!". Overall, I think it was a nice experience yet a little overwhelming for all of us.

The next morning, we got to the mall to the meet & greet with Dora and Diego.

As always, I think I was more excited than the kids to meet Dora and Diego. Hey, I got to give Dora a hug - how cool is that?! Peter thought it was cool that he got to look at Diego's watch!

Next, Peter and Natalie got to ride their first amusement park ride - the Balloon Race. Sam ended up taking each Natalie and Peter on the ride. With me being 32 weeks pregnant, I was not going to go around in circles in the air. It was just as fun to watch their reactions to the ride.

Getting to go first, Natalie wasn't sure what to expect, but she soon realized the fun she's about to have. She seemed like such a big girl, getting into the hot air balloon basket with Daddy, sitting patiently while getting buckled in, and anxiously waiting for the ride to start. I wish I could have captured her little squeals of joy while they twirled around.

Having waited very patiently himself, Peter was so excited when it was his turn to go on the ride. Natalie was not so patient waiting after her ride was over, but she did pretty well. As you can tell, Peter had a great time on the ride:

Next ride was Adventura de Azul (Blue train ride from Dora the Explorer).

This ride was pretty calm and low key compared to the balloon ride - so much that they even let me ride too. However, we soon realized the space inside the caboose (Peter and Natatlie's choice of where to sit) was not made for someone who is 8 months pregnant. It was nice to have shared the train ride with the kids, but I swear I couldn't feel my legs for a while after we got out.

By the time we'd met Dora and Diego and rode just two rides, it was already past noon and the kids were tired. You know the energy level is low when you find Natalie pinching her neck and sucking her tongue, and Peter finds that laying flat on the floor appealing. So, we decided to take a break from the mall and headed back to the hotel with some Boston Market chicken (yum-o) for lunch. After a brief post-lunch nap (only the adults napped), we took the kids to the promised land - the pool. Oh, how the energy popped right back into these kids! The mere mention of going to the pool and having to take a bath afterwards sent them into hysterical excitement. They obviously love the water!

The indoor pool temperature was not as warm as we'd hoped but neither Peter nor Natalie seemed to mind. Natalie yelled several times through her chattering teeth "I'm swimming!" as she kicked her feet in the water. I had hoped the pool would have lifted some of the pregnancy weight off, but I didn't notice anything significant. I also never got to check if I could really float at this stage. I'm sure I would have just looked like a whale bobbing in the pool.

Sam and Peter had a good time in the water. Peter really wanted to swim, so Sam helped teach him how to start swimming. First thing was to teach him to keep his mouth closed as to not swallow all that water! That was a hard lesson to learn since Peter was so happy to be swimming, he was smiling so big yet trying to keep a closed mouth. He got the hang of it. Eventually, he just kept getting out of the pool at the shallow end, walking over to the deep end's ladder, and stepping down to Sam and peddling back to the shallow end. He's a brave little man! I'm just glad he hasn't acquired my fear of deep waters!

We ended the day back at the Mall of America with a short stop at the Lego's store and then a dinner at Kokomo's Cafe. I was pretty impressed by the Lego's display. Peter and Natalie seemed more interested in playing at the Lego's tables, but I took notice of all the figurines mad entirely out of Legos. Most impressive to me were the dinsosaurs. They were way taller than me (not that 5ft is really tall). Surprisingly, Peter wasn't as impressed. Again, just like with Dora and Diego, I seemed more excited about them. The kids just wanted to play - what else can you expect! I guess they just missed their Legos at home!

Finally, we returned to the hotel in time for a semi-normal bedtime for all.

It was a fast yet fun weekend. For the kids, it was exciting just to go on a trip to a hotel. Destination was of very little importance to them. I cherish how the simple things excite Peter and Natalie. I'm sure in 10-12 years time, it all will be very different. We didn't really get around to doing much, but what we did do, we had lots of fun doing it. Obviously, everyone was exhausted on the 5 hour drive home: