Mother's Day and Aunt Ashley's Visit

This year on Mother's Day weekend we got a special visit from Aunt Ashley (and her two dogs) before she moved back to Hawaii. Lori, Grandma and Grandpa (and Lucky) also came up to spend the weekend with us. I'm sure Lori was in heaven with her mom, both her babies and her grand babies for Mother's Day.

I'm not going to lie, I was a little stressed out that weekend. Okay, a lot stressed out. For whatever reason having a house full of people (and three dogs) was a little much for me those few days. Did I mention the three dogs? For those of you who know me well, you know I'm not the biggest 'dog person.' Now, don't get me wrong, I don't hate dogs, but I certainly don't love them. Dogs smell and bark and you have to pick up their poop in the back yard. And they lick toes....ugh. Of course both of my kids and my husband love animals of all kinds, so I'm sure some day I will relent and we will get a dog. But that day isn't today.  Olivia in particular had a fascination with Jude, Ashley's gigantic golden-doodle. The little poodle, Prince, wasn't so child friendly, but I couldn't really blame him seeing the way Olivia was treating Jude. She pulled his mouth fur, his top-of-head fur and used him as a chair. He was extremely tolerant, but by the end of the visit started avoiding the little human with grabby hands.

This picture is a little blurry, but needed for scale. Olivia was fearless.

"Well, hello. Let me pull your whiskers."

Clearly these dogs are good family pets. She definitely took out a good handful of fur before someone could get to her. Poor Jude.

What an excellent chair!

Loving the puppy dog.

Nathan enjoyed playing in the back yard with the dogs and wanted to go back there every time they went out. He had fun throwing the ball to them and also took approximately 20 running dog pictures when he saw me with the camera.

My little photographer. 

On Mother's Day morning, Nathan brought me my present and said, "Happy Mother's Day. It's earrings." Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't tell me about them sooner. The earrings were the matching pair to the necklace Jimmy got me for Christmas (the Mother's Love design by James Avery). Apart from that, Mother's Day on the whole was not great. Nathan and Olivia were both fussy and Nathan was horrible during church. In fact, he may or may not have been carried to the ladies room yelling, "No, I don't want to do that! I don't want a spanking!" Happy Mother's Day to me. Even my Mother's Day nap was a failure because Olivia kept fussing and crying downstairs. I told Jimmy, "Well, I definitely feel like a mother today." Maybe next year will be a little less stressful. Even if it isn't, I still wouldn't trade being a mommy for anything in the world. I love you my precious angels!

Snuggling with the sweet boy who made me a mommy. Side note: this was not taken on Mother's day.

The other part of my Mother's Day gift came a few weeks later. Jimmy made my 2011 posts into a memory book. Hopefully I can get 2012 and 2013 made a little more timely.

The following weekend Ashley came back to Katy so we could take her to the airport Monday morning. Eaaarrrllyyy Monday morning. While she was here again we all went to the "playground with cheese" as Nathan calls it (there is a climbing wall with big holes like Swiss cheese). Olivia got to swing for the first time. She liked it at first but then got a little scared and wanted out. Ashley and I spent most of our time in the shade on a towel with Olivia trying to fend off an overly bold squirrel. Nathan and Daddy ran around and did the slide and pretended to be ice monsters. A good time was had by all.

Nobody call CPS. He put himself in here. He actually spent a fair amount of time in here and we started finding treasures in there too.  You know, umbrellas, my shoes, Minnie Mouse. The usual.

Nathan and Aunt Ashley at Chuy's

Enjoying the swing on a Sunday afternoon.

Turning into an ice monster (or Maleficinet, or a dinosaur, we can never be sure).