A Look on Life, May

Happy Mother's Day!

This looks like my first written post since New Years Day. Wow. Facebook really has taken over as my form of communication! This blog will continue to be the place I write when I just want to journal my thoughts out without the fear of criticism or input from random "friends". Not that you can't comment, if you would like to! It's nice to have a place to communicate with my TRUE friends and family. I do want to keep up with the big things of life here and record stuff for reading in the future.

We have had a great week at the Hawkins' household. It began with my birthday and will likely end here with Mother's Day. I have been spoiled all this week and am enjoying a quiet afternoon on the couch thanks to my husband who took Noah in for a Daddy-Son nap. Hope they both get some good sleep while I catch up with some alone time.

Let's see...as for lately...Monday was my 31st birthday. Two years ago it was on a Sat. (a fun birthday, Matt arranged for a boat trip for us!), last year my 3-0 was on Sunday! (Ughhh!!!) So glad the excitement of the big #-0 is over for another 9 years! This year was just another birthday! And was by far the quietest, most normal "birth"day I remember, maybe ever. A few years while teaching, I have taken my birthday off from work, just to have a day to myself without anyone at school making a fuss of me. Well, this year, I have run out of sick/personal days, so I had to go. Thankfully, only one or two teachers read the agenda for the week and wished me a happy birthday. I'd rather it go unnoticed! My co-teachers didn't remember until Tues. ;-) Interestingly, I ended up totally stressed/rushing home during my lunch period because I had accidentally taken both sets of car keys with me in my purse, and Matt was stuck at the house without transportation. THANKFULLY, it was on the same day that he had to wait for the air conditioner guy to come fix our a/c in the house, so it wasn't as BIG of an inconvenience--the only bad thing was that Noah didn't get to go to daycare until 2:00--after nap time...which means Matt wasn't really able to work from home, as planned. And the a/c guy didn't show up until 1:30, right before I got there. So, that was my school day!
I left school right after the kids did and gave myself an hour (or two!) to get Starbucks/ leisurely walk thru Target, one of my favorite stores ;-) and picked out a few things with birthday gift cards/money---a black purse, a wallet, and a little black blouse--all things that I will love.

I picked up Noah close to 6:30 and headed home---showered and changed, and then headed out again when Matt got home. The evening of my birthday I attended a ceremony for my friend from church, Amy, who was awarded the Spotlight Teacher of the Year. I was not really expecting to go alone, but everyone else bailed on me, and to be honest, I rather enjoyed the quiet time. I don't get much quiet time! I sat in the balcony, wrote thank you notes to people, and enjoyed hearing all the 100+ tributes to the best teachers in our district. Anybody else would have been bored to death, but I enjoyed it. I really wanted to go and support her, too. When I got home, Noah and Matt had sweet little gifts for me, which were perfect things I will love--a watch, some perfume, and a makeup kit. We were supposed to go get icecream at ColdStone's, but as we headed to the car, Noah had a melt-down (remember, No nap for him) and so we gave up and stayed home afterall. Matt made me some chicken quesadillas for dinner and I got to play with Noah for an hour before he went to bed, which was nice. Not at all a totally, special day, but spent doing what I wanted to do.

Tues. Matt had planned to take me out to eat for my birthday. After another afternoon of rushing around at school, we took Noah to a friend's and finally about 7:30p arrived at P.F. Chang's for my "birthday" dinner. It was nice. We have only been there once or twice, 5+ years ago. Nice date night in the middle of the week--but got home close to 10p! Dinner and babysitting were a gift from a friend as well.

Wed. was church night...Thurs. was a MultiCultural Night at school (I got home after 8p), and Friday night was our last Friday Night Event night of the year. Those three days passed by as normal life seems to---very busy. Then we had a nice quiet yesterday--sleeping in past 10a.m...breakfast/brunch at IHOP, cleaning the house together till afternoon nap time, hitting a local pool and Splash Pad with Noah's friends while Matt went to dinner with our pastor/wife and a missionary. Worked out well since we would not have been able to take Noah to that nice dinner and Matt would have not wanted to go to pool with the mom's club/kids. Noah and I stayed and played at the playground for quite a while and will be frequent visitors to the sand box this summer, I think. Gotta get him a shovel and bucket set, though. Hoping his ears will be okay from swimming---first time since his surgery.

Today, Mother's Day---nice day at church together of course. Noah told me the whole way to church this morning, "Mama, I LOOOOVE you"....and "You are so PRETTY!" His daddy has taught him well. Noah told EVERYONE today Happy Mother's Day and gave lots of hugs to ladies who I know were blessed to have one. We sang some of my favorite songs of late---None, but Jesus, & Jesus Paid It All (contemporary version). "Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow...oh praise..." Missionary from Northern Europe spoke about the mission work going on in the part of the country that once brought us the Reformation...interesting to hear they are only 10% church goers, etc. As my heart is stirred, I still wonder if we'll one day end up on the mission field. I told Matt that with all we've done this week, I just wanted to hang out at home...so he picked up Chile's To-Go and we came home. Perfect. The best part of today would be that we were able to give some gift cards/money to a family that I know is not able to go out to eat...and we're hoping it'll be quite a blessing to them today. Matt also gave me a coupon to have family pictures done together, which he knows I've wanted to do (and he hates to do!) Such a sweet man I have in my life.

Well, I've enjoyed this time to myself, but I need to head over to Noah's blog to catch up on all the things he's been doing/saying lately. Thanks for "listening" and letting me share life with you. If you're a mother, I hope you feel as blessed as I do this day at what a wonderful life I live and how lucky/blessed I am to have my family. As crazy as things get, it is truly my two boys that keep me going and make life worth the living. I am thankful to my heavenly Father, as well, for blessing me with my son and letting me learn what it means to love unconditionally as He loves me.