What a week! I am happy and tired. I kicked off last week with my birthday. Our waterfall hike went surprisingly well considering it was 4 miles round trip with a 4-year-old and a baby. Jared had the day off, which was so fun. I'm glad we went on a weekday (my birthday) instead of a weekend when it would have been extremely crowded. I also went thrifting and found a couple things to put on our built-in shelves once we finish painting them. Hooray. Speaking of painting, that's what most of my "free time" was spent doing during the remainder of the week. Next time we paint shelves I will be using a sprayer. It has been a tedious little devil of a project getting into all the corners and crevices of 20 different cubbies backed with bead board, plus 6 lower cabinets. Also we went with a DARK color that really probably needs 3 coats. I might chicken out and call it quits after I finish the second coat because I have already put over 20 hours into painting, and I didn't even do any of the priming--that was all Jared. We are definitely learning things for next time we attempt a building or painting project though, so we will count these as education hours.
I had a lovely Mother's Day too. I woke up to breakfast in bed, and some homemade and framed pictures of the kids. It is an exhausting stage of parenthood (in large part because my babies take their sweet time learning to sleep through the night--Alice still wakes up twice a night), but gosh I really do love being a mom to my spunky little boy and my sweet baby girl. My one mistake was going into the day with the expectation and request to be able to "relax all day" even though we had invited Jared's parents over for dinner. I came downstairs to check on things about an hour after Jared had started cooking and got a little stressed when I discovered he couldn't find the pork roast in the fridge, so he decided to substitute with 2 lbs of GROUND CHICKEN. Jail time. (To his credit, and also demise, he didn't consult me because he wanted me to be able to really relax). If my in-laws weren't coming for dinner I probably would've tasted the meat, been like, "lol this is hilarious but pretty decent actually--carry on," and gone back to being queen of the day. Instead I was like "Ur done, sir." And took over the cooking, cleaning, and somehow the baby wearing too. At one point I was very stressed and went looking for Jared only to find him playing computer games with Jack. Jail time x2.
But otherwise the day really was nice, and we are counting the afternoon hiccups once again as "education hours." Next time we host Mother's Day dinner we will go the Costco premade meal+sides route. Jared actually did a wonderful job of everything he cooked, but since we were having company over I found myself unable to enjoy my afternoon even though Jared is more than capable. Hats off to all the moms in my life who have had company over for countless Mothers' Days and most likely did way more of the cooking and cleaning that they should have, either by necessity or choice. Let's stop doing that and start either letting the ground chicken "roast" slide or going with a menu of entirely Costco premade sides so we can go back to being queen of the day. I love you all! And Mom, Grandma--I am so grateful for you. I'm sorry I let myself get so caught up in cooking that I didn't call in the afternoon. But I love you and I thought of both of you while I set the table with the nice China and other pretty things. I will always think of my mother and grandmother when I see a pretty table setting and gather for dinner with family <3 And now, some pictures from our week:
