Happy Mother's Day! (2 days later...)

I'm lucky to be surrounded by some pretty amazing women who've set an awesome example for what it means to be a mom.  I like to think I'm a good mother, and I owe a lot of that to all of them...so, thank you, ladies!

We had a busy, busy, busy Mother's Day weekend over here, but a good one.  Scott left for his Guys' Weekend Friday night after we took the kids out for dinner.  After he left, Bailey and Gerry and I met up with Bailey's "boyfriend" Max for a play date at the farm.  Crazy kids aside, it was SO NICE to hang out with another adult, and I really like Max's mom, which bodes well for their future.  ;-)  We spent a solid two hours there while the kids ate ice cream, played on the playground, fed the animals, and played on the playground some more.  As soon as we got in the car to go home, Bailey started asking when we were going to see Max again.  She's gone, guys.

We got home after Gerry's bed time, so he conked out pretty much immediately.  Which left the rest of the night for Bailey to snuggle up in my bed.  She watched "her shows" on repeat and I may or may not have fallen asleep before she did {but I'm not admitting to anything}. 

Saturday morning, we woke up and headed over to a friend's house for brunch.  It was, in a word, glorious.  Good food, good friends, cute kids, and the whole day ahead of us.  On the drive over, my brother sent me a text inviting me to bring the kids to stay with him and his fiance in her family's place at the beach for the night and I tossed the idea around for awhile before thinking that Bailey and Gerry would have a BLAST down there.  So when we were done with brunch and all of the kids were nap-ready, I packed up our car and took off for Jersey. 

I was alone with both kids so, of course, it made total sense that we'd hit horrific traffic {thank you, downed tree on 76 that had us backed up for HOURS}. We were sitting -- sitting -- on the highway for about 10 minutes when Gerry started fussing.  Which turned into whining.  Which turned into a screaming and crying fit that lasted almost two hours and caused me to pull over more than once to check that he wasn't hurt and was really, in fact, just pissed about being stuck in a car seat for almost three hours.  We made it to the beach a little after 7pm and went straight to the boardwalk and Bailey's all-time favorite thing --  the RIDES!

Gerry wasn't a fan of most of them, but he did enjoy the cars.  So much so, that we had to put him on a second time. 

 We stopped for ice cream on the way back to the trailer and made it back around 10pm.  Gerry, of course, passed out almost immediately and Bailey followed soon after.  We woke up the next morning, and my brother and Molly {his fiance} treated us to breakfast before we got back in the car to head home.

Because I'm ridiculously directionally-challenged, even with a GPS, I took a few wrong turns and we ended up getting back home after Scott.  That whole "absence makes the heart grow fonder" thing is so true.  We were ALL excited to see him after a few days away!

We had Mother's Day dinner at my aunt's house and then came home and spent the night relaxing.  And, obviously, I can't forget the beautiful flowers that Scott and the kids gave me.  In addition to a Starbucks gift card {he knows the way to my heart, right?}.

The message in the center says: "MOM, thanks for always being there to help us BLOOM!"