Happy Mother's Day!!!

Alas, I have to work 5pm-1:3am on Mother's Day. But at least I get the whole day today with my family and most of tomorrow. :) They let me sleep in today and I took full advantage of it and stayed in bed until 1:30 in the afternoon! Going to sleep at 3am taking a toll during the week. Then we went to Target to acquire flip flops for all 4 of us for our beach trip. Then we went to a wonderful hibachi dinner. We LOVE watching them cook the food and it's wonderful to watch the girls faces when they're doing tricks. After that we came home and Redmosqui gave me some time alone at the house. He took the bugs and went to the store. They came back with a dozen roses. I love flowers. I used to work for a greenhouse as a vendor and loved working with the flowers so they know exactly what to get me.



We put them in a vase on the kitchen table to share the beauty of them. Below is the craft project Bee did at school for Mother's Day. It's really cute and from what I was told the kids had a lot of fun doing it for their moms. Bee does not talk in school at all but when I picked her up she ran up to me with her project very proud of what she did and said "This is for you mama," in front of her teachers. We were amazed! I was like "Did she speak or am I just so tired that I am imagining it." But no, she did speak!



This one below is my favorite of them all. It's funny, it's cute and it makes me proud to be my Bug's mom! It shows me that bug listens to me. Like when I tell her I weigh too much right now and I am trying to watch what I eat. She's even taken to eating what I eat now. She's a sweet heart--- MY sweet heart. This is the questionnaire they did in her preschool class.




I laughed and cried at the same time when I read this. She thinks I am prettier than a "dress." Dresses are her favorite thing to wear. She knows I weigh "too many pounds. I am not sure why I'm 10ft tall but hey, that's flattering! Even in heels I don't hit 5'5. She knows I like hotdogs. She knows I used to wear a heart shaped gold ring when I was a child (she wants that ring badly). She knows I have to be really mad at them to put them in their rooms and she knows that I don't get to relax and play toys with them everyday. That part broke my heart.

Some days I wish I didn't have to work, some days I wish I didn't feel like I had to do the responsible thing for us. I know we all need health insurance. I know the extra income allows us to do more and have more. It allows us a higher budget that's for sure. And it allows each of us one on one time with the children and family time as well. Sure I'm tired, sure the girls have no idea how hard this is on my body, especially with so many things against me (old foot injury, diabetes) but for Mother's Day they helped me realize that they see m hard work. They may not understand it but they know it's there. They know they have a place to call home, surrounded by familiarity and love. They know they have 2 parents who would do anything for them and just knowing that---- make all that I do as their mother and his wife so worth every bit of exhaustion from having 20 hour days.

There is so much more to Motherhood, even parenthood than meets the eye. It brings on appreciation for my mother and parents. And it brings on the realization of all the things it took to get me to where I am now. Mother's and Father's day is really every day. It's in every smile that your children flash. It's in every hug and kiss that we are given. It's in every "I love you," "I don't want you to go to work," "I don't want to go to bed," etc. This is what I have learned from raising my children. I may not have realized it when they were infants... In the showing off what I brought into the world stage which turned out to be the easiest stage, I learned in the trying stages and wouldn't trade in this knowledge for all the treasures in the world. While I know from here on out we're going to have several more trials, I can go into with new knowledge of just how much my children do realize what our daily struggles have been. All thanks to a little questionnaire.

I hope everyone's Mother's Day is equally as gratifying. Physical gifts or not.... the gifts are there if we're willing to see through all of the hard things we endure on a daily basis to the prize at the end of the tunnel. We've got these little humans to train and it may not be the easiest thing in the world, but you know what? It's the most rewarding out of all the things we'll do here.

How I met my love.....

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In honor of Valentines Day, some bloggers are writing about how they met the love of their live. I've decided to follow along with Mama M. at My Little Life this week with her Valentine's Day Extravaganza. Add your link below and share your story. Sunday was the story of how you met your love. Monday is your favorite best or worst date and Tuesday is your engagement story. I killed 3 birds with 1 stone... or story. ;)

I *was* in college in 2003. But..... (uh huh, there's always a butt) I kept getting chalazion's on my eyes. Was forced to be all pirate-like with eye patches for a couple of months. I wasn't allowed to drive and no longer lived on campus so that was out. I had no choice but to drop from the semester. I was bummed, but I spent a lot of time online, and on AIM. One day, I get this pop up saying that this screen name was unknown to my buddy list but wanted to speak to me. I look at the screen name, and it wasn't something like cutie4utee6669990000, so I thought about accepting it. It could have been someone from one of my classes. Afterall, I did drop out of the semester without saying anything to anyone. Accept! The message went like this:

Him: Hi, I am new to Charlotte. I found you in the directory. I was wondering if there is anything to do here.
Me: You can go to bars, go to clubs or go to Carowinds. That's pretty much it.
Him: Okay, well that answered my question. I am going to go clean up my dishes from dinner.
Me: Ok. Bye.

Shortly after that, I remember we're great for music and concerts and comedy shows. I hadn't added him to my buddy list but I did do IM logging back then. So I messaged him back to let him know. And we started talking via AIM pretty much all day, every day. After a couple of weeks of IM talking, we decided to meet. I decided to meet him at Golden Coral. And then I decided that one of my best friends would have a boyfriend problem, and need to come with me just in case he turned out to just have a normal screen name but own a not so normal brain. (I had 2 stalkers on campus that year.) So, best friend lets me pick her off, and we're off to golden coral. I realized, I didn't even have his phone number, so canceling was out. If he turned out to be nuts, it was only one dinner. He didn't have my phone number either so it worked out. After I picked up one of my best friends to go to meet him, she saw how nervous I really was.
So, we get to Golden Coral. And there he was. He sent me his picture so I would know what he looked like. As soon as I saw him, I knew I would marry him. He was wearing and blue and white button down, stripey shirt. And jeans. I said hi to him, and made sure he was the guy I was supposed to meet. Introduced him to my friend and went inside. We all go inside to eat. My friend and who I was hoping would be my future husband hit it off great! They talked, and talked and talked..... and talked. And we ate and ate and ate. Finally, I was certain no one could eat anymore, and no one could talk anymore so it was time to go. She talked to him more than I did. I just kind of joined in when I had some pertinent to add to the conversation. Obviously my friend left with me, but on the way back home she said there was something different about me, and in the few years that she'd known me she'd never seen me this way before. I told her that I thought I'd be marrying him. She said she believe it and asked to be dropped off at the mall. So I dropped her off and still had a good 20 miles to go to get home when I realized, I wanted to call him. Didn't have his number, he didn't have mine. I called my mom instead. A few days later we went on another day--- to Bruggers Bagels and Starbucks. (Which is also the same date we relived when he proposed to me almost 3 years later.  Except people were staring at us when he proposed, not on our first date) 4 weeks later, he helped me move into a new apartment. And he pretty much moved right on in with me. We've been inseparable.

And that's how I met my love.

Best date: Starbucks and Bruggers.

Worst date: He knew I loved astronomy, and while visiting some of his family in PA. He packed blankets and pillows and took me to a lake he used to spent time at when he was a kid. It was May 2003. He also go us food and coffee. The only thing he didn't pack-- bug spray. I got eaten by mosquitos. The date lasted all of 15-20 minutes. What can I say? Mosquitos are attacted to me. (OH and he has nothing to do with his RedMosqui nickname, I guess that just ended up being a coincidence.)