Monday, May 10, 2010

Mother's Day!

Did you all have a nice Mother's Day? Did you take some time to appreciate/remember your mother? I was actually able to spend some time with my mom and it was a nice day overall.
The day started like many others. Alex woke up too darned early so I got him and brought him back to bed with me. As we lay there, him nursing, me dozing, I heard the bedroom door squeak. I gave Biju a gentle nudge to give him a heads-up that he was about to get climbed upon by Ajay. That cute little brown eyed boy peeked over Mount Daddy and the first thing he said was "Happy Mother's Day." - How sweet of him to remember. Honestly, at 6:45am, it wasn't what I was thinking about!
Eventually, all male-folk vacated the bed and tried to let me doze a little bit longer. I think I did sleep a bit more but I was still out of bed by 7:30. I remember the days when I didn't have to get out of bed until 8:30 because I didn't need to be at work until 9:30!
As sorta mentioned before, my parents were in town - they'd spent Saturday with my sister and her family and were going to come to our place for lunch after church. Ajay was driving us batty with the "When are Nana and Papa going to get here?" Once they arrived and the boys were ecstatic and ran to get the door for them.
Biju fired up the grill and cooked up some brats and turkey burgers. To that, I added some roasted broccoli and some fruit with dip. Alas, I do believe I was the only one who enjoyed the broccoli. Mmm. That was yummy (soaked in a lemon juice/olive oil/salt/pepper mixture, then tossed with Parmesan cheese and roasted at 400 for about 20 min). After lunch, we put the boys down - by that I mean all the boys. Alex napped in his crib, Biju snoozed alongside Ajay in his bed, and Papa dozed on the couch. Mom and I looked at some seeds I had gotten in the mail then we headed out to peruse the garden. She had brought a fabulous book about gardening along with her. She hugged it closely to her chest and said "This is mine." Hmph. So much for trying to get her to leave it behind! When we got back inside, Biju and Dad were watching a basketball game. Yawn. So Mom dozed on the couch, and I went in to sleep a bit with Ajay before waking him up. Alex awoke right about the time we were cutting into the German Chocolate Cake - good timing kid! Ajay thought Alex needed his photo taken:



Then the rest of us posed for him:



Then it was my turn behind the camera and I got Nana and Papa with both the boys:



We gave our hugs and kisses as they headed out for their 3 hour drive back home.

They recently butchered a steer (nothing better than your own farm raised beef!) and brought us 4 one-pound containers of ground beef. They had thawed on the trip, so instead of risking it and putting them back into the freezer, I just cooked up all 4 bags. I kept them as 1 lb. servings when I put them into the Ziploc freezer bags so now I can easily grab a bag to throw into a dish for dinner. That will make dinners so easy! (I do have to say that one of the bags is less than one pound, as the boys kept stealing it as it cooled!) In addition to spending Sunday afternoon/evening cooking beef, I also blanched some broccoli. We had a big bag from Sam's and if don't use it, you lose it! (Trust me, our last big bag started looking furry and I was so sad to lose it all.) I tell ya, the boys didn't care for the roasted broccoli at lunch, but they devoured the blanched stuff!! I boiled it for three minutes then stuck it into an ice bath for three minutes, drained it and stuffed it all into freezer bags. The boys went to town stealing all of the broccoli! Not complaining, though. I'm thrilled they were eating so much healthy green stuff!

Ajay pretended he was a giraffe and at all the leaves off of the trees. Here is a tree about to meet its doom:



Alex saw me using a straw to suck out the extra air from the freezer bags. He figured he needed to do the same, so I gave him his own little baggie with some broccoli in it. I think he did more blowing in than sucking out.



And then he ate it all.




Another highlight of the evening was when we busted out this old arcade style game. I had bought this many years ago for a birthday of Biju's. It is 5 games (Pac Man included) in one box that has a joystick and a firing button. We weren't sure if it still worked, but after a fresh set of batteries, it did. I have taken to setting the timer so the boys don't sit there pestering each other with "its my turn" "its MY turn!"



Oh! And then Biju ran to Walgreens to pick up some cream for Alex's leg and brought home an A&W Root Beer for me. Yum!! All in all, it was a very good day!

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