Mostly-Mommy

Mike said that to me last night, which actually means “Happy Birthday” in French — he may have meant “Anniversaire Heureux” though.

For our fourth anniversary last night we enlisted my mom and Bob for babysitting duties while we went out to a leisurely dinner at the Melting Pot. That was somethin’ else! We were there for more than two hours! Leisurely indeed!

We had the “Pacific Rim” dinner for two:

Fiesta fondue served with apples, veggies, bread, and tortilla chips

Strawberry Almond salad

An assortment of meats, shrimp, veggies and potstickers cooked in a Mojo base and served with a bunch of sauces (mmmmm… Angry Coctail Sauce)

Cookies & Cream chocolate fondue served with fresh fruit, cake, brownies, and cheesecake

Ummmm… YUM! Good god we’re full though, that was CRAZY. We took a bunch of the meats and veggies home with us (what little we didn’t gorge ourselves on while we were there). I highly recommend visiting the Melting Pot at least once if you have access to one because it is an experience like no other. Fun stuff. Good times, good times.

(Sorry to gloat about our delightful dinner but we get one fancy meal out a year so we really enjoy ourselves on our anniversary)

When we got home Mike told me that he was very sad because he got me a present which did not arrive as promised. He ordered me a gorgeous boquet of orchids from 1800Flowers.com but they were never delivered. Mike is very unhappy about this, but he showed me a picture and it was a very lovely and thoughtful gesture — good enough for me. He makes me so happy. I’m a lucky girl!

Four years ago today I married the love of my life and my best friend, Mike (though we’ve actually been together for eight years). The time has flown by and we’ve had a lot of changes in our life since then — some wonderful, some terrible — but through it all we have continued to love and support each other. Every year that passes brings us closer as we continue to build our lives together, build our family. I’m so happy to spend the next 75 years in the arms of the man I love.

Loose Park is one of our favorite fair-weather destinations so yesterday we took off for a nice trip to the park.

We stopped to feed the ducks in the pond some Cheerios. Nick got a little over excited and flung his arm out and knocked his sippy cup right into the nasty bird water. I personally have seen a giant bloated dead fish floating around in there on more than one occasion so you can understand when I tell you that I considered just calling it a loss. Nick was not as detached though — he looked at his cup floating in the pond and started hysterical crying. I’m not sure if he felt sad? Guilty? I don’t know, but I immediately got down on the ground and fished it out with my BARE HANDS. The things we do for love. This morning I washed that cup, boiled it for twenty minutes, and then washed it again. I’m still not sure if I’ll ever let him use it again.

After the pond we walked around the park to the sweet playground on the other side. Nick got out of his stroller and high-tailed it over to a couple of girls playing under the slide. They had to be eight or ten years old and they both FELL IN LOVE with him. I watched from a bench as they sat him on their laps and gave him hugs and patted him on the head. Nick was in heaven. Then one of the girls decided he was lost and ran off to ask everyone in the area (except me) if they were his mommy. I watched for a bit but eventually got up to claim my kid. They were just so cute I didn’t want to intervene (and hey, free babysitting right?).

Mere moments later we were climbing the structure and an older gentleman in a business suit started talking to Nick. He also was quite enamoured and said “Your hair is like spun gold!” That’s a new one. I’m used to compliments about the boy because let’s face it, he is the most adorable child on the planet, but that was one I hadn’t heard before. I never thought I’d have a blondie!

Katie: I love you more than there are stars in the sky
Mike: I love you more than there are elctrons in all the electricity in the universe
K: Nice one! I wish I was better at chemistry so that I would have a geeky retort for that
M: Something about a mole maybe
K: Like something about how many protons are positive that I love you
M: heheheh
K: Yeah, a mole with a POSITIVE ATTITUDE
M: Wonderful! You’re funny
K: The caps were accidental, but they totally worked

This here picture is of my sweet boy Nicholas being tackled and kissed for the first time by an older woman. Note the look of confusion, blissed out confusion. Get used to it boy, it will be this way the rest of your life. They will never make any more sense than this.

The picture is from the 4th of July which my mom, Nick and I spent at the Gunter’s. The little darlin’ is Darby, John’s niece (I think I may have caught her Southern accent). We had a wonderful time, met a lot of very nice folks and ate some delicious food. There were several kinds of ribs and the like, and I know if Mike had been there instead of in a galaxy far, far away he would have eaten his weight in them. Nick spent the entire afternoon running around like a crazy person without stopping once. I wish I had a picture of him on his first tire swing ride, he liked it.

I decided to be adventurous and baked an apple pie to take to the pot-luck, I made it all from scratch including peeling and coring about 17,601 tiny green apples that came off of my mom’s tree. I didn’t get a picture of the lovely pie because someone took my camera with them to another continent, but this week I will bake a couple more for Mike’s work so I’ll get pictures then. I am quite proud of myself! The pie was goooooood!

(Ok, I wrote this post a while ago… like months ago, but the picture is still cute! I just took my sweet time getting it scanned in because I am lazy.)