Sunday Snapshots: Mother's Day

What a week! 

A week of assisting my handy man as he cut and installed the new countertop.  (Can anyone say stress?  Really, hon...you don't really mean that you want me to help measure and draw the lines on the wood for the sink cutout, do you?  What if we make a mistake?  And you need me to make sure that the cut you're getting ready to make is an exact 45 degree angle?  And that the next piece is also an exact 45?  And now why. aren't. they. meeting?!  Must we haul this six-foot slab of butcher block out to the patio again?)

A week of everything everywhere again.  No running water in the kitchen sink since Wednesday.  A make-shift table set up to hold all the kitchen counter stuff and paper plates and disposable cups.  The (essential) coffee pot set in the floor by an outlet.  

A week of mess.  Not just the to-be-expected everything is everywhere kind of mess.  How about the sand-the-countertop kind of mess that leaves a fine layer of sanding dust on every square inch of the entire downstairs?  The sort of overwhelming mess that requires dusting everything that you own and vacuuming the floors only to leave smears of fine dust and then needing to wet mop all the floors to really get it all up.  On a Saturday evening.  When you're hosting the Mother's Day get together the next day. 

A week of things other than remodeling.  Like each one of us taking turns being sick.  (One at a time of course.)  Like Kati making an all from scratch pineapple cake for her grandmother (promised weeks ago) without a kitchen counter on which to work and no running water in the kitchen.  And a baby shower on Saturday afternoon.  And Bekah's piano recital, a bit later on the same Saturday afternoon.  And did I mention that we were hosting the Mother's Day gathering? 

But then...we did NOT host this year's Mother's Day gathering!  When we were at the baby shower, Kristin (the dear, dear girl) offered to host!  I told her that this year, it was the best Mother's Day present she could have given me. 

And so Sunday afternoon, we drove to Kristin and Brian's house and had a lovely meal and a relaxing (key word...relaxing) time of visiting and chatting and enjoying the children and appreciating mothers. 

Traditional group shots

Top: me and my girls
Bottom left: Mom and me; bottom right: Kristin and her five

It's been a while (a few weeks, at least) since we've had a performance.  Yesterday, the kids were all about the musical Annie.  They sang through every song on the soundtrack, and then treated us to a rollicking performance of "Easy Street."  (If you have been reading Sunday Snapshots for a while, you may have noticed that Bekah and Owen are the consistent members of the performing troupe.  Yesterday, they needed Kati to be Miss Hannigan.)

It was quite a show!  Still photos do not do it justice.

Rooster (Owen), Miss Hannigan (Kati), Lily St Regis (Bekah)

Thus, the week ended on a (much) less stressful note!

As the four of us shared a frozen pizza last night (the oven is still functional), we talked about the good things from the past week.  We got a lot of work done on the kitchen.  Working together, we had gotten the house cleaned up.  Everyone was feeling better.  We had a nice dinner out one evening.  I added, "And we're still married."  (Anyone who does DIY projects together knows that such things are the test of a marriage. ~smile~)

When we talked with Ryan on the phone, I told him what I had said, and he replied, "But do you still love each other?" 

And we do...so it's all good. 

(But I really do not want to measure any 45 degree angles in expensive slabs of wood this week.)