Father's Day 2010

Happy Father's Day!

The children colored pictures of St. Joseph for Daddy and I bought Chris his long sought-after thin waffle maker (versus a Belgian waffle maker, which we already own but he doesn't prefer those waffles).

Our day was a bit of a comedy of errors, or perhaps just spontaneous. After Mass I had planned to cook us a special breakfast (using the new waffle maker), but we had plans for a family fun event that was slightly north of church, so it didn't make sense to drive all the way home. Therefore, we went to breakfast at our favorite brunch spot. Then we drove to the Charlotte Nature Museum for a special three-hour display of live farm animals, only to discover upon arriving at the empty parking lot that the event was yesterday and I had misread the newspaper announcement. John was so calm about the disappointment, especially in light of how we'd spent the whole drive there excitedly discussing what kind of farm animals we might see. Since the museum abutted Freedom Park, we walked around the park and the lake instead.

Chris and the children on the bridge while Mama's heart raced that one of the children would fall in

We came back to the house and Mary went down for her nap. Chris decided to take John to visit their first-ever "sprayground."

They had so much fun that they drove the 20 minutes back home and convinced me to come with them so Mary could join her brother in the fun. There were about 100 kids racing all over the sprayground! (I didn't take any wide group shots because I wanted to respect the privacy of other people's children in their bathing suits.)

John even brought his tricycle along!

For a special Father's Day dinner, I made pork chops, rice, and collard greens.

For dessert, I made apple pie (dear Rebecca's recipe!) for dessert and served it with ice cream and homemade whipped cream.

Potty Training Watch 2010: For those of you as gripped with excitement as I am (ha ha! nobody else could be) about Mary being almost done with potty training . . . she just completed her second 24-hour stretch of no accidents (the first time being in California)--even though today I hauled her to four public places! And the day before she had only two accidents. She loves her new trainers and now insists on wearing them, even when she sleeps.