Mother's Day: Queen for a Day

Here was the conversation that happened while we were driving in the car on Mother's Day...

Devon & Dean: Mama, you don't want to kill bugs???
Me: Nope. I don't have to kill bugs. That's why I have 3 boys in the house - Dada, Devon and Dean... so I don't ever have to kill any bugs! I'm the princess and you guys have to protect me.
Devon: Oh... you're the princess of the house. I get it. That means you make all the decisions! (With total realization)
Firoze: Pretty much sums it up...

So yes, I'm the Princess of the house... the Queen of the castle! With a house full of boys, I'm lucky because I get all the love and adoration around here... and yes, I guess I get to make all the decisions too! (Ha... I wish!) Anyways, on Mother's Day, I got to decide how I wanted to spend it and all I wanted was to be with my family all day and I got my wish.

We started out with my two little early risers getting me up at 6:45am for breakfast. I had to drag Firoze out of bed and instead of cooking, we headed out to Panera for a "mama's day off" breakfast with all the good stuff... lots of baked goods and bacon!

Since I was lucky enough to have this Mother's Day off for the first time since I've been a mother, I wanted to take care of all my friends who had to work today. So, I spent the morning cooking and made enough food to feed 50 people. I made the Pioneer Woman's chicken, spinach and artichoke pasta, a huge Italian mixed salad with all the good stuff and Pioneer Woman's rosemary rolls. I went and dropped off lunch for all my friends at "the box" to make their Mother's Day a little better.

While I was busy cooking, Firoze took the boys out to the duck park and came home with the best surprise ever... a new turtle for our house. Since this is turtle #4 for us, we decided not to put him in our homemade pen in the driveway, where every turtle turns into Andy from Shawshank Redeption and makes his escape. Instead, we used our hermit crabs cage and put him in lock-down inside the house. The boys are in heaven! All day and every day since discovering him, they have been holding him, feeding him and taking him outside for swims in his turtle pool (aka...a big rubbermaid container).







Our newest pet, named by Devon... Turtle McMyrtle!





Dean is such a rogue baby, he runs into our backyard "jungle" with no shoes and not a care in the world!



After dropping off lunch, I decided the best way to spend my day is to be out in the sunshine with my family, so we packed up the kids and headed off for an adventure... to explore the Chattahoochee River! After all our years living in Atlanta, we had never really gone to see this and I was excited to see something new. We ended up at Riverside Park which was probably the best kids park I have been to in my life! All of Atlanta seemed to be there with people picnicking, playing soccer, at the playground and hiking along the Chattahoochee. Why am I just finding out about this amazing place?!



This is the Playground #1, with some of the most unusual and coolest playground equipment I have seen...







Then we went exploring the river area with beautiful paved pathways, bridges, hiking trails and wooden walkways spanning the marsh.



We were lucky to come upon a family of geese with a flock of adorably fluffy gooslings. Devon wanted to hold one SO bad, but Mother Goose said "over my dead body!" ;)













Firoze, being the Sri-Lankan version of Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter), couldn't wait to take the boys down into the mud pits surrounding the Chattahoochee.



Devon spotted something slithering and Firoze jumped into the mud pit and pulled it out... it was a young eel! Disgusting!!



Both the boys were so psyched to be holding this thing, but Dean especially was playing with it for about 2 minutes, holding it like it was one of his toys while it slithered all around his hands and arms...



Thankfully we did not add a pet eel to our collection at home of a hermit crab and turtle!



Firoze was reaching his hands into the marsh and pulling out any creatures for the boys to examine and they were loving every minute of it!





Now this is more my speed... a cute little ladybug!







Then we stayed and played some soccer on their big field and I got to lay back and enjoy the sunshine.



And lastly, we ended up at Playground #2, which was even better than the first one! It was a perfect day in every way...



Not only did we have one perfect day together, but we had two days off which felt like a real weekend. So, on day 2, we headed over to our neighborhood. We are lucky enough to have about 20 playgrounds to choose from within a 10 minute drive from our house, but we were all excited when they were building a brand NEW playground about 2 blocks from our house. So, this will be our new hangout... our neighborhood playground!







This doesn't look that high in the picture, but this is the highest, fastest, steepest slide I have ever seen in my life. It's about 15 feet high and basically a straight drop and the kids go shooting down it like a rocket. Every time Dean goes down it I hold my breath in fear. Devon loved it and thought it was like a waterslide... minus the water!



Dean "no shoes" Nizam goes climbing and doing his monkey thing and says "I can do it MYSELF! I don't need NO help!" whenever we hover and try to keep him safe!





A playground self-portrait...



So to all the mothers out there... I hope you felt like queens this weekend and got the royal treatment by your family. I hope you got hugs and kisses, cards and gifts, good food and special days spent with your kids. My biggest blessings and gifts in my life are my two boys and I couldn't ask for anything more!