Well, I've had my fill of preciousness for the day. Here's my contribution for precious pictures of children on Mother's Day ;0

(Quote by Ben, as he was getting out of the truck tonight, hat in hand and cute coordinated outfit on, ready to go see our friends in the band.) I am lucky to be spending Mother’s Day with my mom, the coolest mom on the planet! So today I finished sanding and staining the deck, a surprise for Dave when he gets back from a business trip. We are pretty sure this is our last 12 months here, so we’re making sure our to-do list is short when the time comes to sell. Plus, we want to enjoy the house looking its best just as long as we can before handing over the keys. Mom and I filled two green waste bins to capacity yesterday with trimming (that word makes Dave nervous, especially since my mom and her sister like to “trim” with a Saws-All…the rest of this story is classified for now, but you might just hazard a guess as to what my Mother’s Day present was from my mommy… Tonight we went to dinner and to watch Hawaiian music legends play. The boys are always great and love the music so much, but there comes a point when Ben gets a little antsy. I can still feel him writhing in my arms as his slippers go flying off both his feet in a nice arc through the air – luckily we were just outside the dining area at the time! Sam got up and jammed on his uke and also did a really compelling drum set with chopsticks (see video here – it’s 72MB but well worth your time waiting for it to buffer). We tried in vain to get a cute picture of the four of us out to dinner and gave up after our third try. (Have you seen all those cute pics of your friends with their kids in a wagon, or gazing at each other in a field of flowers? Yes. I wanted a cute picture, too, but they weren’t able to be within feet of each other nor still long enough today!). Oh – the best part of dinner was the dessert table. Yes, the notion of a dessert table was enough to make Sam’s head spin. “Mom, like please, just please can we have some more?” It was like managing a natural disaster as Ben shoved fistfuls of brownie into his maw and Sam plotted his attack on the table unaccompanied. I gave him instructions to not touch every one, but to carefully observe as his hand hovered over the table, choose one, put it on a napkin and bring it back. Sweet guy followed instructions (I wish I had a high-tech communications gear like in a command center where I could see what he was doing and speak to him Secret-Service like right into his ear “Don’t touch until you decide!”) He came back from his second forary almost in tears- “Mom, they are out of … (gulp)… banana bread!” Another memorable evening with my whirlwind friends in whom I really do try to instill some manners :0 Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who were wrangling your herd today!