A few weeks ago I began to consider what to do for Mother’s Day for Kimberly. I know many families go out to eat on Mother’s Day, but the thought of being surrounded by many other mothers with daughters did not seem like a good idea. What to do… Last year I bought Kimberly a peanut butter cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory for one of her birthday gifts. She loved it, but when I went looking the cost to ship them was now astronomical (probably because of the holiday). The cheesecake would have cost upwards of $70. I didn’t want to break the bank, but she loved that cheesecake… So I researched and found a recipe for the exact cheesecake she loved. Bet I could make it for less then $70… It took 4 days to build, 8 layers of peanutbuttery chocolate cheesecake goodness.
I made cards with the boys, carefully helping Aden spell out Happy Mother’s Day. He worked so hard on it. Gabriel created a few pictures and stamped a bunch of hearts. During dinner he looked at Kim and said, “Don’t look in the cabinet, we made you cards and hid them there.” 🙂
On Friday, our friend Joy from across the street came by as the boys and I were playing out in the front yard… “What are you doing for mothers day?” Not much. I told her about the cheesecake, but that’d probably stay home. She hits me with this idea of getting some neighbors together for a mother’s day BBQ. “Sure, why not, sounds good.” We’ve done that before, and having all the kids run around playing together is always fun. Before we knew it just about everyone was going to come, almost 40 people, with food, wine, quite a party… We setup a ton of tables in my driveway and I grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, everyone brought a dish… What an incredible time. We could have been stuck inside, focusing on what was missing, on Alexandria not being here… but instead were given a wonderful day of food, of thanks, with friends. It was a perfect, warm, sunny day. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to have as my neighborhood, God has really blessed us with a fantastic place to raise the kids.
