Weekend in New Jersey

 The babies and I flew to New Jersey for a quick weekend trip over Mother's Day weekend.  We celebrated Mother's Day with my wonderful mom and my 93 year old paternal grandmother, but the REALLY big deal was my dad's 70th birthday!  Happy Birthday Dad!  And let's not forget, my mom's birthday is the day after my dad's, so we got to celebrate her, too!

Let's just say - it was a busy weekend:

Thursday: Mom's Birthday + baby J's first flight.  Thank heavens for the iPad and the Winnie the Pooh movie!  I used the Cares 5 point harness for M, but I wouldn't recommend it.  In fact, I'm returning it.  He kept sliding out of it and was unable to lean over to rest his head and nap.  

Friday: we had a great visit with a dear friend from college!  She brought her daughter over to play with the boys and my nephew.  It was so good to see them.  As we prepare to move, I am reminded of how important it is to maintain friendships.

Saturday and Sunday were filled with family time and celebrations.  Then on Monday, we flew back home.  It was great to see everyone, and us being gone allowed D to get a lot of packing done.  Some pics from our family time:

Happy in the air-conditioned hotel!

 

M rockin' his "ear muffs" for his movie!

Snoozing with Uncle J

Cousin Lego time

Whenever we go to New Jersey, we always walk to this little pond near Granny's house.  Happy Birthday to my parents, we can't wait to see you again in June!

Mother's Day and My Letter of Thanks

Inspired by this post, which is much more eloquent and beautiful than anything I could ever write, here is my letter to my sweet boy's bio mom.

Dear ____,

Hi!  We hope you are doing well.  As I was rocking M to sleep tonight, I just had a moment of overwhelming gratitude for you.  I want you to know that on Mother's Day, even more so than any other day, I am especially thankful for you, and the incredible gift you gave me.  You gave me the chance to be a mom - you made me a mom!  You took a chance on us and you trusted us to care for M, even though you had never even met us.

I can't thank you enough for your trust in us, and in me especially.  It is a privilege to get to parent him and watch him develop into the sweet and happy little boy that he is.  I just want you to know that I won't let you down.  I will love him and protect him with every ounce of my being, for as long as I live.  I don't take a single minute with him for granted, and I am so grateful to you for giving me the opportunity to love and care for him.

Obsessed with trucks!

Thank you for all of that you've done for us.  For us in this family, Mother's Day is not about me but it is a chance for us to reflect on how grateful we are to you for bringing us together, and for giving us a happiness that is greater than we ever could have imagined.  You are our hero, and we love you.  Thank you.

Annie

Weekend Roundup and a Happy Mother's Day!

Happy (rainy) Monday!

How was your weekend?  Mine was a lot of fun:

Friday we met some friends at the great park downtown.  It has lots of stuff for the kiddos, even little ones like my guy.  Although he is content to just play in the mulch if I would let him! =)  We had a fun picnic with our friends and the weather was gorgeous, so it was another great day to be outside.  Then we ran home to meet my other friend so that we could watch her two kids while she took the third for a well baby visit.  These kiddos are great, and they always have funny things to say.  For example, one of them picked up the remote for our stereo and said "why do you have a remote if you don't have a TV?"  (We don't.)  I explained that it was for the radio but that must have been too confusing because she asked me again two more times about the remote.  Later she told me (while we were playing nursery rhyme pretend) that I was going to be "the old woman who lives in the old shoe."  HA!  She's keeping me humble.

For dinner we rode our bikes down to Bardenay.  M rode in his bike trailer, which is the greatest invention ever.  We are going to get a ton of use out of it this summer and Bardenay is a fun place to kick off the weekend with some apps and drinks.

Saturday morning I ran 8 miles with my Fleet Feet group.  I was pleased because I ran at a roughly 9:30 pace the whole time, without water or gel.  I usually take a gel if I'm running more than an hour, but I didn't have any this time, and I still felt pretty good.  One last long run before the Half Marathon!  I'm really hoping to run under two hours, and my PR is 1:58 so I would love to beat that.  I have (mostly) stuck with the program, but I haven't run longer than 10 miles in this training cycle, so that may do me in.  In any case, I feel blessed that I get to run where there are views like this:

We went to Mass on Saturday night because D had made reservations for a Mother's Day Brunch for us at Beverly's at the CDA Resort on Sunday morning.  BRUNCH WAS AMAZING!!!  I have never in my life seen a brunch like this.  Even better, we had a gift card from D's work to pay for it! =)  The brunch had everything: all of your usual breakfast stuff, plus oysters, sushi, 3 roast turkeys, steak, made to order crepes, macaroons, chocolate-covered strawberries, you name it.  They were also making small tapas-style plates of shrimp, scallops and steak.  Everything was wonderful, I ate too much and yet I was disappointed that I was too full to eat any more.  =)

My "Mimosa Flight"

First Round at the Buffet - I was giddy!

My Sweet One!

Scallops, heavenly!

We always remember and honor M's bio mom on Mother's Day because she is the one who really made this day possible for me.  She is incredible and we will always be so proud of her and grateful for the impact that she's had on our lives.

Enjoying some of my huckleberry crepe.

By this point he had had enough of the pics and just wanted to get home for a nap, poor little guy!

It was a wonderful, low-key weekend and we were grateful to get to spend it together.  How was your weekend?