Mother's Day 2012

Happy Mother's Day! I never really could fully appreciate this day until Liv made it so much more meaningful to me...sorry, Mom, hope I didn't offend you?! I decided that it should be a Mother's Day Weekend - not just celebrated on Sunday. Duane wisely agreed! So, on Friday night he drove all the way to Punch and brought home my favorite kind of pizza. The three of us barely said a word to each other during that dinner - we devoured every last piece!

Saturday morning we went to the St. Paul Farmer's Market. It was crazy busy so we didn't stay too long but it was nice to be outside and see what was in season (asparagus and rhubarb). Liv was a tad cranky so we came back home and then she and I walked around the neighborhood for a bit and had lunch. Once she was asleep, I made a run for the grocery store while Duane stayed at home. We had big plans to go to the Craftszaganza in St. Paul later that afternoon but someone (Olivia) took a 3.5 hour nap so our plans didn't work out. We were invited to our friends' house for dinner so shortly after she woke up, we had to get going. Just in case Liv wasn't in the mood today to take pictures, I had Duane take a few before we left for our friends' house.

We had dinner at the Bowe's house and then they had the great idea to ride bikes to a nearby park in their neighborhood. Liv loves going to their house because their two girls have a ton of toys and are so nice to play with! Before we left for the park, Liv discovered a purse and a doll stroller.

Riding along with Vivian

Evelyn shared a doll and Olivia carried it and her purse the whole time we were at the park. When we asked her if we could hold them, she would clutch them tighter and say, "No!"



Once we left their house, we thought for sure Liv would fall right asleep. Nope. At one point, Duane grabbed my hand and was holding it and Liv piped up from the back, "Hand! Hand! Hand!" So, I had to reach back and hold her hand, too. She stayed awake the whole way home and even had Duane read her a couple books. It was probably 9:30pm before she finally conked out! I'm pretty sure that's the latest she has ever stayed up!

This morning was so fun! I woke up to lovely presents - flowers, cards, a book, and a hand-colored mug.

We were off to breakfast and Liv was being quite the charmer! She had lots of people smiling and waving at her. She was really into her pancake, fruit and milk, too.

Okay, then we took a "Sunday drive" and headed to the Washington County Fairgrounds for the Sherpherd's Harvest Festival. It's basically a knitter's dream - barns full of different types of yarn and live sheep. (We went for Liv so she could see the sheep.) We found the crowd to be very random and a bit granola. Liv was perfectly content sitting in the backpack and it took a bribe of a water bottle to finally get her down. She saw lots of llamas and sheep. We even watched a demonstration of sheep herding, which made her laugh out loud.

It was warm enough today to get out the baby pool, so that's what we did! I was too lazy to get a swimsuit for Liv so she stripped down to her diaper. We did manage to get sunscreen on her, so don't worry about that pasty skin.

She couldn't bother getting up so Duane was hand-feeding her bits of her sandwich.