Mother's Day Weekend

Mother's Day weekend was a whirlwind of traveling, family, time with moms and grandmom's, huge amounts of delicious food, a Baby Celebration at church, and a few meltdowns and hurt feelings. All in all, it was a fun (and pretty exhausting) weekend and lots of memories were made. We started the weekend by meeting Terrell's family at Olive Garden for a Mother's Day lunch for Terrell's mom. We ate way too much... and I'll just keep to myself how many bowls of salad and breadsticks I consumed... and had a good time seeing everyone and giving Nana her gifts. The 10 of us, including four kiddos four and under always makes for an adventure at restaurants! But we were all together... and it was Olive Garden so it was all good. =)

Garrison has a tendency to "disown" mama and daddy when we're with the grandparents... and occasionally become a little ugly and disrepectful towards us. It's really strange and tough to make sense of. We're all for him loving his grandparents (and other family members) and wanting to play with them and do things with them without us, but not when it means he is defiant and disrespectful to his parents. It's beyond frustrating. He's completely normal and loving towards us at home but pretty much dislikes us when we're with family. It's like loving and spending time with his grandparents or aunts, uncle, and cousins come at our expense. Not exaggerating here. Ugh. Anyway, we talked about all this on the way to lunch and even practiced how he should talk to us politely and let us know in a respectful way if he wanted to sit by Nana or Allison or ride with Nana and Pops, etc. He did great during lunch. GREAT. I was so thankful. It all fell apart afterwards though. Example #1:

He turned his head and refused to look because I was making the picture. =( He was "reprimanded" and then I let it go.

(Sometimes I'm good at letting it go, other times it just hurts my feelings and I'm left totally confused and self-conscious and insecure and embarrassed. I know there's no proof of this, but he really does love me at home when there's not an audience around.)

After that episode he was fine and enjoyed giving Nana her cards and present and hanging out with his cousins.

After lunch we went back by our house to pick up a few more things we'd need for the weekend and then made our way to the hometown. We enjoyed going out to eat and spending time with my parents and AnAn. Mother's Day Sunday has become so busy that the only time my mom gets to really spend with us and just us is Saturday night. It turned out to be a fun night hanging out with the fam.

Sunday morning we participated in the Baby Celebration Service at church. Austin did great! He sat through the beginning of the service quiet and content and was so well behaved during the actual "celebration" part. =) We are so thankful for our sweet littlest man and the blessing he is to our family. Celebrating Mother's Day with 2 boys this year made it extra special.

Let the whirlwind begin: After church it was time for our annual tradition~ Mother's Day lunch at Buckner's! This year was interesting because it was so rainy and cool, but the food was as delicious as always! It's nice that none of the moms in the family have to "host" a dinner or work hard cooking and cleaning, plus we get to socialize and chat in line while we wait then we eat a whole bunch of yummy food. I literally put away enough food this weekend to last me all week. Gracious.

After lunch we all changed clothes, got Austin down for a nap, and gave cards and presents to Granna. After that Garrison got a little disrepectful and decided he could talk to me any way he wanted, so he got in big trouble. So much trouble that I made him stay home with daddy (who was already staying home with Austin who was napping) while we all went over to my Granny's to give cards and presents to her. He was heartbroken. My nerves were shot. I felt guilty and sad and disappointed all at the same time. But Terrell and I decided we have to nip this behavior in the bud. No more smoothing things over just because we're with family. Parenting is exhausting and stressful lately. Boo.

I did manage a few pictures with my boys before the madness occurred. Not one of all 3 of us, but that's okay. I got those Thursday morning before Muffins with Mom. =)

Okay, back to the whirlwind. I left my Granny's house early so that I could go by my parents' house and round up all my boys who were napping and head over to my Nanny's. We met my parents there and visited with Nanny and ate brownies and caught up. But before we knew it, it was 5:00 and time to head home. But first we stopped by Terrell's parents and visited with them a little bit before going back to my parents house to pack up and grab something to eat. Needless to say, we were pooped by the time we made the hour drive home and put the boys straight to bed. The house was quiet around 8:45ish. So not too bad... Except there was no time for my Mother's Day cards and presents since Terrell had planned to do all that when we got home at a decent hour... which didn't happen.

The weekend didn't exactly turn out like I'd planned, with my firstborn being difficult and us getting home late Sunday night, BUT, I'm still so very thankful for my mom, grandmothers, and mother-in-law to celebrate with, and most importantly for the 2 boys who made me a mama. If nothing else, this year's Mother's Day was busy and memorable... and my sweet boys gave me cards and presents this morning (since I was working last night), and best of all my firstborn hugged and kissed me and told me how much he missed me last night and Happy Mother's Day bunches of times. He made me feel loved and special just like it was still Mother's Day. Yay!!

Mother's Day 2010
Mother's Day 2011