Mother's Day (weekend)--Olive Garden Yumm!

My Mother's Day weekend started on Friday with a nice dinner out to the Olive Garden. I chose that because not only do I love it, but the boys have wanted to try it for a long time. April has tried it a few times, and loves it, so I decided it would make everyone happy. And, when everyone is happy Momma is happy, you know what I mean? Besides I do happen to love it as well.

Anyway, looking at these pictures makes me hungry again. Warning... you just might want to eat some Olive Garden now, in which case--look out, yikes the prices! But, that's not important on this special Mother's Day holiday.

Michele enjoyed this beef dish--Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo.

 For the kids menu they have a "create your own pasta" option, and Alex chose meat sauce with a fettuccine noodle. And fries. He liked it, but didn't finish all that.

I got the tour of Italy, which includes 3 smallish portions of popular dishes--alfredo, lasagna, and chicken parmesan.

April ordered alfredo, of course, I expected nothing else. Aaron did the create your own pasta dish, with a topping of chicken.

Aric also did the create your own pasta with a topping of sausage. By the time we were done with soups, salad, breadsticks, and the main course we were all super full. April was the only one with leftovers because she got too full on soup. It was such a nice dinner. Not only because the food was delicious, but because I was there with all the people I love the most. I am so happy to have all these people in my life, and thankful that I was able to celebrate this Mother's Day with them.

After eating dinner it was time to spend Friday evening playing capture the flag in the dark with our homeschool friends from co-op. Aaron has been doing a survival class, and this was their final fun end of the class hurrah. This turned out to be such a fun night! First, while it was still light out, all the kids got all muddied up so as not to be spotted. Remember this is survival capture the flag, so you have to be stealth, and not be spotted while trying to get the flag. Some of the older kids really went all out with camo, and mud, and branches. It was fun to see how creative and camo-ed they got. When it was dark the game was on. We had 2 fires going, with a flag at each. The opposite team is supposed to stalk the opposite fire very quietly without getting caught. There were 2 watchers at each fire who had to watch the flag to catch them. I was a watcher for a good portion of the night, and I tell you some of those kids were super stealth. I had to really keep my eyes peeled to spot some of them. They were super quiet, and blended into the ground while crawling around. I had fun saying "busted" over and over again when I caught somebody.

Aric all muddied up for the capture the flag in the dark game. Amazingly that mud was pretty much gone by the end of the night. We didn't have to worry too much about hosing him off before driving home!

On Sunday we went down to visit with my in-laws for the day. I didn't want to miss church on my special day, so we had to get up bright and early to get everyone ready and be down to their church by 9:00am. Guess what? After waking the kids by about 6:40, an hour and a half drive, and lots of fast driving, we weren't late! We walked in right at 9am. Phew! I was proud of everyone for the effort they made even though there was lots of grumbling.  The kids proceeded to get lots of candy from the youth, and made some special "disposable apron's" for a sweet Mother's Day gift.

After church and lunch, and went to the park to play for quite a while. These 3 monkeys were the only ones there. No April, so I'm sad she's not in the picture. Especially since I forgot to get a picture of everyone after church. It was a nice relaxing day. So, there you go, Mother's Day 2016. A simple sweet weekend.

I love these 3 little monkeys and I'm so thankful to be their Mom.