Mom to the Rescue and Ryan's Birthday!!

 Just like last year, Ryan was out of town for his birthday.  This year he was gone to DC as part of an administration rotation during his residency!! He was gone for two weeks this time rather than two months- thank heavens!! However I still found myself getting lonely and worn out.  Luckily, my sweet mama had planned a trip to visit us during the last few days of his absence.  Her presence was a much needed break for me.

We were all SUPER excited to see her!! Very first, we all wanted to watch her open her very late Christmas presents

 She seemed to like her bracelet!! And she was very excited about the traditional calendar we made her:)

 The kids did not leave my mom alone for a second the entire time she was here!! They had so much fun with her!

 My mom planned to go to each of the kids' classrooms to read some fun stories with puppets!!  I wasn't able to go watch, but from what I hear, it was quite a cute little production she puts on!! All the kids LOVED it!!  My mom was extra sweet and ate lunch with Jane, spent the entire recess time with her (where she unfortunately got bombarded by all the kids in Jane's class and she had to entertain them all!!) and then read to her class for a good long time!! Jane was in HEAVEN.  Also, she spent the entire 3 and 1/2 hours with Beckham at his class and read to them as well!!  He felt pretty special!! I am totally stealing this tradition when I have grandkids!!

Here they all are creating the monster puppet for one of the stories :)

 Here is everyone sitting down to a nice dinner of homemade gnocchi minestroni soup while the sun was setting behind us :) Lovely!!

 One night we went out to eat at Fentons- the kids favorite restaurant her. Aaaaaand we got their monthly epic ice cream sundae!!

 There is a Jelly Bean store right next door which we stopped in.  I was sure to buy a game of bean boozled that we could play for a little evening fun- hehe!!  This game is a box of assorted jelly bellies.  There were many sets of matches in the box which look exactly the same except one is delicious and the other is a nasty flavor.  To play you each grab one of the same Jelly Bellies and eat and you either get the delicious one or the yucky one!! It was disgusting but super duper funny!!

Here are some funny pics of people reacting to the disgusting ones- haha!!

 bwahaha!!

 

 hehee!!

 giggle giggle!!

 hahaha!!

 I had way too much fun with this gross game!! Glad no one was taking my picture :)

 Some of the flavor matches were:
peach vs vomit
tutti fruity vs stinky socks (my personal least favorite-yuck!!)
coconut vs baby wipes
juicy pear vs booger
chocolate pudding vs canned dog food
etc.

 snicker snicker!!

 Yes...we had a spit out bowl...

 Here is the gang watching Night at the Museum 2 before bed :) Mom stayed awake for maybe 1/3 of the movie :)

 Ryan came home and was able to spend one day with my mom before she had to leave. Since we had missed his birthday AGAIN, we had a small celebration for him.

 The kids each filled in a fun questionnaire about daddy!

 My mom gave Ryan a nice card and an assorted mix of unique sodas- one of Ryan's favorite treats:)

 I got him a small momemto from several of the places the kids and I visited while he was gone so he could see that we were thinking of him.  We got this shirt for him when we were at Old Navy, I got him a chocolate bar from World Market and a Happy Birthday pack of Jelly Bellies!

 Then we had delicious cupcakes:)

 I was so grateful to have some company for the last little while that Ryan was gone. And we just had such a blast with my mom!! LOVE THIS LADY :)