Happy Mother's Day 2008

So, I only have 2 minutes till my bedtime, but I'm cheating a bit because tomorrow is not a regular day. I'm leaving with Evan for a 30-hour adventure called Outdoor Ed down at Camp Letts. We leave tomorrow at 8 am and get home on Tuesday at around 2. From my experience with middle schoolers, the less I say the better, so I'm planning on snoozing with one eye open whilst we ride down to the camp in the morning. If not, well, I'll hit the sack super early tomorrow night since the kids have to be in bed at 9:45. I just barely found out that I'm needed as a chaperon and I'm really excited to go (except for the dismal weather that is predicted-I hope they'll have a Seattle attitude and just let us play in the rain).

Today was really a lovely day. I got my breakfast in bed, some lovely gifts and an afternoon with fun and family. We combined today's celebration with Sara's family birthday party. She chose barbecued ribs, which became slow-roasted-in-the-oven ribs since I didn't feel like standing out by the barbecue all afternoon in the rain. They turned out pretty well-tender enough, but the barbecue does add some nice flavor. Everyone ate happily in spite of the fact that the ribs were cooked inside. We had our traditional Lime Pie, which is not even a distant cousin to a genuine Key Lime Pie, but is instead an old family favorite made in about 2.5 minutes (out of limeade concentrate, sweetened condensed milk and cool whip-I try not to think about the ingredients too much because it really is delicious) that is light and citrusy with a nice mousse-y texture. We serve it in an oreo crust with mini-chocolate chips sprinkled on top.
For kicks, because she was the birthday girl, Sara tinted one the traditional green (we use food coloring since the above ingredients have no actual color) and one a lovely, personality expressing lavender. The younger kids actually got a kick out of eating "purple pie." Wouldn't it be funny if that became part of the tradition? Ah, my Sara. I've been working on her tribute post, but my scanner died and my mother's day gift of a new one hasn't arrived yet, so I'm still in the middle of scanning some pics. I'll probably combine and do one big post for my three May babies.

I do feel like I need to tell the world about The Big Treat today: It was that, per his usual tradition, Eric completely took over the kitchen for the afternoon so that other than supervising the ribs because he'd never made them on his own before, I was shoo-ed out to my room so I could pretty much relax all day. Then he stayed up past his bedtime and completely cleaned the kitchen. What a doll. I got to have all the fun and none of the stress. It was a nice time.

All right, I'm off to bed then, a bit late, but happy to be a Mom, grateful for my quirky, fun family, and feeling very lucky to be married to such a good man. See you all after my Adventures Among the Adolescents.