A Mother's Day Tea and My Favorite Book

My mother has taken to playing tea party. I remember having a tea party here and there while my sisters and I were growing up, but Mom has gotten serious now. After she, my sister Courtney, and my brother Sawyer went to Prince Edward Island last summer and had high tea at the 100th anniversary celebration of Anne of Green Gables, Mom started buying fancy tea cups like this one:And we started playing tea party! It's great fun. :) Courtney has learned how to make scones, they make some kind of special yummy cream and lemon curd (which sounds gross but it really yummy, or if I am using my tea-party-British-accent, it is quite delightfully splendid). I think the best part is all the pretty dishes that we actually use. So often, china just hangs out in the china cabinet. It's more fun use it!

On Mother's Day, Courtney outdid herself and made a delicious Mother's Day Tea. She made cucumber sandwiches, scones, yummy cream stuff that I am sure has a name, chicken salad, cookies, cheesecake, and other tasty treats. We had three kinds of tea, English breakfast tea, mint tea, and caramel tea (SO good). Courtney did pretty much all the work as a present for Mom, Jessica, and me. What a good sister!

The funny part of the tea party is that my brother, twenty-five-year-old, wild child, railroad worker brother, Chance, was in attendance. Chance is the last person I expected to attend a tea party, but since it was Mother's Day, I guess he felt obligated. When he saw the all the pretty cups, tea pots, and the girly food, said and I quote, "What the *&#^@*# am I supposed to eat?" He then commandeered the bowl of chicken salad as it was the only meat on the table and started eating it out of the bowl with the big spoon. Oh brother. Literally. While it was funny to watch three grown men (my brother, brother-in-law, and Courtney's boyfriend) drink tea in flowered cups with their pinkies out, I think the next tea party should be ladies only.

Later on that day, my mommy dearest gave me this book!It's The Secret Kitten! My favorite book! My copy got ruined in The Great Basement Flood of '88 ('89?) Mom bought me a copy off Ebay. Mom read me this book so often when I was little that she still has the words memorized. :) I didn't really remember the storyline, but I remembered the pictures!

The kids finding a kitten at a grocery store...trying to figure out where the kitten belongs...trying to convince their daddy with the grumpy eyebrows to let them keep the kitten...and eventually getting to keep him!
I was so excited to get a copy of this book! It's neat to come across something so very familiar that's been missing for twenty years. THANK YOU SO MUCH MOMMY!!!! I love you! I'm going to bring The Secret Kitten home tomorrow, so you can read it to me.

A Mother's Day Surprise

Meet my new dance partner, U.G.

Being that my son is only eleven months old, I didn't expect any macaroni necklaces or paintings for the fridge on Sunday, my first Mother's Day. I didn't know what to expect, but I thought I might get to sleep in while my husband took charge of breakfast, and I suspected that I might get some flowers or a book or something. I was very surprised Sunday morning, when I was presented with a Dance Dance Revolution video game!

For anyone out there that doesn't know, Dance Dance Revolution is a video game played with a pad with arrows on it. Arrows fly up the TV screen, and players have to step on the corresponding arrows on the pad at just the right moment in an attempt to perform various dances. There's lots of different versions out there, but the one I got is played with a Nintendo Wii. With the Wii's version, there's also hand motions that players perform by waving a couple of remotes around. It's hilarious to watch people play. They look like they're trying to stomp ants while having some sort of seizure that results in arms flying up above their heads. It's quite a work-out.

Several years ago at an arcade, I played a dancing game for the first time, and I was hooked. At the time, the games weren't really available for home use and a used arcade game system was well over $3000 (I liked it so much I looked!), so I only got to play a few times a year at the arcade. It's such a fun game, and when you play, you're exercising and you don't even realize it! I really wanted one if there was ever a version that was practical for us to get (well...not practical...video games are never very practical I guess).

Anyway, my husband knew how much I liked the game, so he and Colter schemed together and got me one! I'm so excited! Now I can play games and exercise at the same time! Yippee! Maybe I'll dance away 20 pounds and not even realize that I'm sweating.

I'm going to have trouble on Father's Day helping Colter find a gift for his Daddy as awesome as the one I got. Any ideas?