Steps For A Happy Mother's Day

Step 1: Make sure your whole holiday weekend is filled with parties to go to! We had three on Saturday alone! Here is a picture of Liam as he helped his cousin Gemma celebrate her first birthday.

The consensus was that they looked a bit like garden gnomes in the party hats. But cute garden gnomes, hence the flurry of picture taking!

Step 2: Go to bed Saturday tired but happy after hanging out with your friends and laughing together. Wake up late because your husband took charge of the kids. Go for coffee and bagels, then spend time reading on the back porch. Ahh, you should start to be feeling relaxed by now.

Step 3: Leave the kids with trusty Aunt J and head downtown with your husband to Second Sunday on King. How was it that the city knew that closing my favorite street to traffic and letting me roam about all the shops and restaurants would make me so happy? (And my husband's suggestion to visit a few of my favorite stores didn't hurt!)

Step 4: Come home, grab children, and head to the pool......where you will promptly find that all your friends had the same idea. Line up your lounge chair next to your buddies, grab a cold beverage and enjoy the sunshine. Oh, and get up a million times to keep your littlest rug rat from drowning. I would have been annoyed but his cuteness distracted me!

Step 5: Head out to dinner with friends. Go to local hibachi grill - which is sure to be free of Mother's Day crowds - and sit in the private room (complete with blue light special!) Contemplate ordering the "Hot Sex Mama" sushi roll. Listen to Liam scream every time you try to take away the giant soup ladle he is playing with and be grateful for the private room you are in. And for friends who understand crazy kids and their behavior!

Step 6: In all your brilliance, decide to try and take a picture with both boys when it is way past bedtime and nobody is cooperative.

                 Follow these steps and you are guaranteed to have a really awesome Mother's Day!