Happy Mother's Day, Susan!

Remember how last year Susan got some flowers the day before Mother's Day and then even more gifts on the actual day? Yeah, well, it happened pretty similarly this year, too. The girls and I did some day-before shopping, part of which involved flowers that Susan then watched us trim and place in a vase of water when we returned. ("Surprise!") We held off on the revelation of the other gifts, though, until this morning. What with church and Sunday school early in the morning, we got up at the butt-crack of dawn in order to allow time for gift opening right away:

Taken in medias res, this photo captures the excitement of not only Susan's face and mouth ("All those gifts are for me?!") but also Hillary's hair.

Not sure why Susan's holding the greeting card so high in the air, but it's her day, so she can do that sort of thing if she wants. The girls seem intrigued, in any case.

The gifts include scented candles and body sprays from Bath and Body Works, a colorful metallic rooster to add to the kitchen/dining room decor (of the same theme), and some items made in school by the girls. The girls consider a vanilla candle to be a traditional Mother's Day gift in our family, so the white one above is scented "warm vanilla sugar." The other--"enchanted orchid"--is lavendar to match our bedroom.

Family resemblance?

Big smiles!

Another part of Susan's gift was not having to cook any of the meals. So we took her out for pre-church breakfast at Hardee's, the Dakota Diner for dinner (raspberry chicken, ham, garlic mashed potatoes, Southwest corn, soup, salad bar, dessert), the Dairy Barn for another dessert (free sundaes for moms today--regular prices for everybody else), and the China Doll for supper (a variety of delicious dishes to share, including the tastiest egg rolls that I've had in a long time).

Well, actually, Susan ordered in the Chinese and then baked brownies to serve with Schwan's vanilla ice cream for dessert as we watched some DVRed episodes of a History Channel program on the Presidents (by the way, check this out). (In the afternoon, she and I had caught up on several weeks' worth of DVRed episodes of Lost.) We all rolled to bed absolutely stuffed from all the large-portioned meals throughout the day. Susan, too, keeps us well fed on a daily basis; but today we let someone else do the feeding for her. We love you, Mommy/Susan!