Mother's Day and all the priceless things.

All of the bad attitude and temper tantrums are {almost} worth it when I get a sweet smile and a kind word or gesture from my kids. That's why Mother's Day is so great—because they're forced to be nice to me and give me thoughtful handmade gifts! Ha, I'm joking. No one can force my kids to be nice, evidenced by the fact that Logan refused to smile or wish me a happy Mother's Day on Sunday morning until he got a major meltdown out of his system. Apparently "Daddy was mean" because he told Logan to wish me a Happy Mother's Day. Not sure if Logan wanted it to be all his idea, or if those words hurt his mouth for some reason, but whatevs. He eventually gave me a smile as was sweet as pie to me for the rest of the day.

All in all, I had an absolutely wonderful (yet crazy busy) weekend, which included 4 soccer games, a movie, grocery shopping, mounds of laundry, and a yummy family lunch at my in-laws.

It started on Friday with some BEAUTIFUL flowers Adam had delivered to my work from the kids.

I took a half day vacation from work to do some shopping for my mom and then go to Aidan's school for a Mother's Day Spa event that the first grade classes were hosting. His class spent days getting ready for this event, including decorating a cupcake especially for me, and making fruit kabobs as refreshments. Let me tell you, all the money in the world couldn't have bought a better manicure than the one Aidan gave me. He was precisely trained in how to apply the salt scrub, how to rinse it off ("no soap allowed, Mommy"), how to massage the lotion onto my hands, and he even painted my nails (which CLEARLY he wasn't trained to do, but it could have been much worse, lol). I didn't originally want to paint my nails so I didn't bring any polish, but he was disappointed, so I told him to borrow some polish from a classmate. He chose bright red. He was so proud of his work, and the smile on his face was priceless.

When I picked up Logan from school, he was all smiles as he gave me his handmade gift and card. The pride he had for what he created was priceless. He told me he just knew I would love it. And I did, without question.

On Saturday, after two soccer games (with some grocery shopping by Adam and the boys in between) and a 5-minute quick change, we headed to the movie theater (side note: both boys say theater with an emphasis on the long "A" like thee-A-ter instead of thee-uh-ter...not sure where they got that from, but it's cute) to see Rio while my mom babysat Lorelai. Cute movie and I loved having a movie "date" with all of my boys. Although, they were waaaayyy less than thrilled to stroll through Urban Outfitters and the new Crate and Barrel afterwards. Logan literally took me by the hand and dragged me out of the store. Oh well.

Also priceless was my first Mother's day with my sweet baby girl. I felt bad that she couldn't be a part of our movie date, but we would have been crazy to take her. Plus she got some quality play time with my mom (they even had an impromptu occupational therapy session—that'll be a future post).

On Sunday, we did stuff around the house in the morning (apparently dirty floors and laundry don't cease to exist just because it's Mother's Day, darn!). Major props go to Adam for doing the grocery shopping, mopping and laundry-folding for me, another priceless gift.

Then we headed to the in-laws for a family lunch.

I only got a few pictures before my camera battery died, but at least I was able to get the important ones of me with the kids, and us with our moms.

Speaking of our moms, I already gushed about my mom, but I need to gush about my mother-in-law, too. I hear all these horror stories about "monster-in-laws" and I thank my lucky stars that I have an absolutely fabulous one! I even worked with her for several years before she retired. She's the whole reason I have my job. (Nepotism at its finest, folks! Although technically we weren't related at the time since Adam and I weren't even engaged yet. We'll just call it a really good reference.)

We ended the day with two more soccer games. Aidan and Logan both had games at 5pm, but luckily the grandparents, Adam's sister and 3 cousins came out to watch so I could split time watching both boys and they each always had someone cheering them on (and picking them up off the ground when they took a ball to the face courtesy of the other team's coach—poor Logan!).

Whew! What a weekend. Exhausting but fun, and I truly enjoyed my special day with my special sweeties. Yep, priceless.