Happy Mother's Day!!!

 Translation:  My mom's name is Stephanie, she is 20 years old, she's tall, she dresses in pajamas (real cool) and works in her room with my dad (no comment).  She cleans Sally's poop outside.  She eats cookies, fruit and vegetables, drinks lots of water, yogurt and milk.  (WHAT???)  Me takes me to buy groceries at Wong's (a local grocery chain) to buy guns and swords.  We go to the park to play volleyball and have picnics.  I love her five...... she looks like crazy!!!! (his teacher told me she asked him SEVERAL times if he really meant to say that and he kept repeating the same thing.)

Your little son, Maddox

I just LOVE that kid!

 Oh and this is a picture of me.

As some of you might remember from last years post, Mother's Day here in Lima is BIG!  The kids are let out of school early, shows are happening throughout the week and lots of festivities are happenin.  This year was that, TIMES 3!!!  Yesterday I went to Liam's little show at school at which he saw me and just started crying and we sat together to have a picnic.  The theme at his daycare was "Having a Picnic With Mom."  I brought a basket full of stuff we both liked and we just ate together, watched the little show (that he was suppose to be in) and danced at the end.  His was relaxed and sweet.

Today well.... was one of my worst nightmares!!!  Both Maddox and Sofia had there shows at the SAME TIME!!!  I spent the past 3 days strategizing, talking to teachers and trying to figure out how to make it work. 

Here is how it went down:

I dropped Liam off at his daycare and then dropped Lee with the video camera and camera at Sofia's school.  Maddox and I went to his preschool (3 blocks down) and he prepared for his show.  I stationed our sweet intern Taylor outside of the preschool with the car ready to go.  Lee called and said she was about to go in 3-5 minutes.  Maddox still had about 8 minutes.  My teammate Alison was in position at the preschool (her daughter Cailyn goes there too) and she was ready to call at the 2 minute warning and she was trying to beg them to stall.

When Lee called with the warning I ran outside jumped into the car and got to my seat as the announcements and the anthem was being sung (if it wasn't for the dumb announcements and the anthem all this would have gone without a hitch!)  Sofia came out on stage and as she started her second song my phone rang and Alison was giving me a 2 minute warning.  I looked at Sofia (and holding back tears) motioned to her I'd be right back.  Luckily Lee was there video taping!

I jumped into the waiting car and Taylor drove me back to the nido (daycare) and I FLEW into the back door as Maddox was facing the area where I was suppose to be sitting and I ran up behind him and said "Oh buddy I'm sorry I was in the wrong spot!"  He was so excited and his face lit up and I was SO grateful that I made it RIGHT in time.  He sang his two songs and read a poem and then we had our little picnic.  After a few minutes Lee called me with the 5 minute warning that Sofia was almost done.  Maddox and I gathered up our stuff and both jumped into the car and headed back to Sofia's show.  We made it right in time for the closing announcements and then met Sofia in her classroom for her report card and her sweet gift she made.

Oh wait, did I mention that my armpits were sweating SO bad, my hair was growing in volume (from the sweat and humidity my natural curls were turning "fro-style") and I was out of breath.  I looked at Lee and said "I HATE MOTHER'S DAY!"  That's not true, I really loved their shows and their precious gifts they made.  They were SO excited to do their shows and talked about it ALL week.  I love that they got so excited about it, I just wish they hadn't been at the same time, HA!

So below I've included a couple videos of Maddox's show (he definitely BELTED IT OUT), the picture he made of me including the facts he wrote about me (YOU DO NOT want to miss that below) and Sofia's report card.  We took video of Sofia but it was on the actual camera and at this point we are not smart enough to put that on here.)

Blessings and God bless all you Mother's out there!  Our jobs are never over and in some ways, that's the best part!

PS Couldn't get some of the pictures or videos of Maddox to work so I will try again tomorrow, SORRY