How we do Mother's Day

Every time we get to celebrate a holiday such as Mother's Day, I cannot help but think of those who are not as fortunate as I have been. There are those who do not have mothers, those who have had less than perfect mother's, those who have lost children, and those who are experiencing some sort of family heart-break. For whatever reason, there are always going to be people out there who find themselves thinking "this is not how it's supposed to be" on holidays. For those of you who find yourself there; my heart goes out to you...really. This post is all about how we spent out mother's day weekend, and I don't feel like I can post about family dinners, cakes, presents, and flowers without acknowledging that I am lucky.

That being said, I am so very lucky. Lucky to have two beautiful children who delight and exasperate me every day. Lucky to have a husband who lives his life to be a strong dad and whose priority is making me and his children happy.

I am lucky, not only to be the mom of two ridiculously awesome kids, but also to be have so many awesome moms in my life. We chose to focus on my mother-in-law, my mom, and our family.

Friday night, after dance class, we took the kiddos to spend Friday night and all day Saturday with Tim's parents. We did this to we could have a date night (hello Casablanca Restaurant and The Avengers) and so we could get some projects done around the house on Saturday. I am in the process of redecorating the kid's rooms (more to come on that later! ) so we painted Caleb's room, hauled some newly refinished furniture up to Savannah's room, and prepared meals for the upcoming Mother's Day events. At one point in during the day, I told Tim I felt like I was being lazy (I was in the middle of my second episode of Life Unexpected during a painting break). Although I really did feel like I was being lazy, I realized this was ridiculous when I thought about what all I had accomplished around the house! It really is amazing how much the kids demand from me emotionally....I don't always realize it until they are not around!

Anyway, we spent time with Tim's mom when they brought the kids back to our house from "Camp Nana and Papa." I made chicken tostadas (recipe HERE) and sopapilla cheesecake (recipe HERE). The chicken tostadas are figure friendly. The sopapilla cheecake is....not.

I decided that I wanted to cook for my mom as well so we decided to have them over after church for lunch. TIP: if you want to have people over for after-church lunch, make something that can be prepped ahead of time so that all you have to do is pop it in the oven when you get home. I made a cake the night before (pics below), a light ceasar salad and poppy seed chicken casserole (recipe HERE). 20 minutes after we got home, we were ready to eat and celebrate my awesome mama.

Our preacher used this quote in this morning's sermon and I can definitely identify and thought it was appropriate for today:

"When I became a mother, I lost my mind but found my soul."