Monday, May 14, 2007

Mother's Day



This weekend began on Friday evening when our friends Anne and Anita arrived from Seattle with their beautiful children, Hazel and Gabriel. Hazel is two months older than Joe-Henry and the two of them get on like gangbusters. Gabe is ten weeks old, and really, there oughta be a law against babies so cute.


He is turning my shriveled old ovaries into dance halls, where I picture my beat up old eggs in faded flapper costumes, with cigarettes hanging out of their painted, wrinkled mouths saying in a gravelly, whiskey soaked voice "Hey, Sweetheart! Ten cents a dance! Ya can't beat that with a stick, know what i mean?!" All that to say - he's just a little lovebug.



Saturday morning we woke and Joe-Henry and Hazel played Cadoo while I fixed us breakfast, and Charley made coffee. We sat around in pj's gabbing, catching up, and talking about how amazing it is that we were all friends before we married, before we had kids, and here were our offspring, these gorgeous, smart and kind-hearted children of ours, playing together like the best pals they are.

We then wandered into "the 'Couve" for the Farmer's Market and got a few extra goodies for dinner that night, and I got some tomato plants for the garden. The kids played at the park with Charley, while the girls, and Gabe (by virtue of the fact that he can't walk yet and was fast asleep in the snuggly next to his mommy's heart) wandered in the market, looking at jewelry, plants, purses and people, free from sleeve tugging and whining. Saturday afternoon took them into Portland, and Joe-Henry and I attended a birthday party for a little girl in his class. He went swimming, they ate cake, and he got to get his face painted like an endangered grey wolf.


Saturday night they came back with their lovely friend Stephanie and Charley made us all pizza and we had adult conversation, interrupted only occasionally by short superhero spys.


Then came Sunday morning, Mother's Day Morning. Hazel and her Mom's had picked out a book for Joe-Henry called The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip (which is now my favorite book of all time), and I read to the kids while my husband, my amazing, talented, handsome, funny husband made us the brunch to end all brunches. There was bacon and potatoes and coffee and a fruit salad as tasty as it was beautiful and the most amazing baked French toast I've ever eaten. I gained 10 lbs just looking at it. Joe-Henry and I had painted coffee cups at the glazing studio in town for Anne & Anita for Mother's Day, and the kids all gave their moms gifts they'd made.



My husband, who didn't let me in the kitchen for twenty four hours, (which really was all the gift I needed), also got me a gift certificate to an amazing garden store in Portland called Garden Fever. After brunch we all drove over there, where we shopped around a bit, and then had to bid our houseguests adieu, as they were going to meet Gabe's father's mom for the first time. Joe-Henry and Hazel hugged and kissed and cried, and my little boy was kind of sad for the rest of the day, but he still gave me lots of love and hugs, and tried his very best to mind his mom for one whole day. When we got home, we did an iChat with Charley's Mom, and got to say "hi" to the family that we miss so much.

The day ended perfectly, with a snuggle from my boy, and something even better from my husband. Let's just hope those ol' dance hall girls don't get any big ideas.

6 comments:

suttonhoo said...

happy mother's day, pretty lady.

what a beautiful day -- so good to see pics of A&A and their beautiful kids -- and yeah, I'd say Hazel's a prime candidate for Mrs. J-H.

not that I'm pushing.

;)

Anonymous said...

Oh, that's awesome!! Sounds like the perfect weekend! Hey, Anne and Anita might like Tiny Revolutionary! (I wrote about them in my latest post). Love the wolf face!

Justice Fergie said...

what a great weekend! i know what you mean about reminiscing with friends that you had B.C. (before children). we're going to try and make a trip to visit some college friends of ours this summer - we have 5 kids between us - should be a blast.

i laughed out loud at the vision of your dancing "ladies" with the cigarettes hanging out of their mouth!

thanks for visitng my blog!

PS
I think I DID scream out loud last week when Christopher shot his friend. It's getting (gotten) crazy!!

Kimberly said...

Oh you had a fabulous time. Thanks for sharing all those wonderful photos.

You've been tagged and it's Tracey's fault at:

http://organizedchaos-ramblingsfromva.blogspot.com/2007/05/if-i-had-one-wish.html

I hope you and Mr. J-Henry accept the challenge to help make this wish come true in a small way.

Thanks!

Lolabola* said...

great great photos. So vibrant! I love J-H's face makeup and that baby is so cute.

I laughed out loud at the dancing ladies too. Especially the faded flapper costumes.

anniemcq said...

Thanks all for the fabulous comments -

Suttonhoo, I love ya! And I agree about Hazel. We try not to be toooo obvious in our comments about her being daughter-in-law material. But Joe-Henry loves her like mad, so we hold out hope!

Tracey -I sent them the link to the Tiny Revolutionary site! Such great stuff!

Justice Fergie - Thanks so much for stopping by! Your trip sounds like so much fun. With an only child, it's so much fun to have vacations with other parents and kids.

Kimberly - thanks for the tag. We are definitely doing it this afternoon. Shane has pricked my heart. I really hope he gets his wish.

Lola-Thanks for the comments about the pictures. They are incredibly photogenic kiddos, and the landscape around here is so green right now, everything looks amazing.

My dance hall girls thank you all for their props, too!