Yep, another Mother's Day came and went.....and the kids just acted like a bunch of swine.

We've been really living high on the hog around here lately. Most everyone was home for my Dad's birthday dinner this weekend. The two youngest of his granddaughters decorated my house with paper signs posted on EVERY door on the main level, and numerous colored ribbons (from my ribbon bin) tied to varying pieces of furniture and knobs all around.

TB was so excited about their "main" sign taped to the door that PawPaw would walk to upon arrival. She came running to show me, announcing she had made up a rhyme, all by herself.....it read, "your 75 and your still alive."

Hey. It rhymes.

So, after all those wondrous festivities of celebrating the aliveness of our father, we move to Sunday. A day on the calendar in celebration of Mothers. And it was great. Rain, thunderstorms, I didn't have the needed craft supplies for the Sunday School project, more rain and thunderstorms, my Mom ran out of time and didn't get to make potato salad for Sunday lunch, more rain and thunderstorms, and to top it all off, my sister's face was swelled (from a condition she has, but is on medication for)....and when I say swelled, I mean SWELLED....as in, she could have won a spot on Discovery Health's freak show special. (sorry, she declined a photo opportunity which I would have only planned on using to further science advancements, not as mere blog material.) Which I am happy to report, she is doing much better. The swelling had subsided substantially by late Sunday afternoon......so much that PBS might have still took her as a half-hour special, but Discovery Health probably would have turned their head in search of others, more medically freakish.

But look on the bright side....you get to see MUD pictures from Mother's Day--- better known as SWINE FEST '09. Kind of like the Easter Egg Battles.....certainly not your average, run of the mill holiday fare, but normal to our family.

So, I told you about all the rain......and sometimes, you can be fortunate enough to find a good mudhole after a lot of rain. And you can try to skate through it:


Or use it as a natural "slip and slide"---much better than that plastic mat version.


You can make a big splash....

Or not. You may not have enough body weight to plummet yourself into the actual puddle, and thus come to a screeching halt mere inches from the swine fest.

However, with lots of encouragement and proper technique advice from your siblings and cousins, i.e. ("run fast, faster, faster, okay get down, NOW!").....you too can achieve success as a swine look-a-like. Look at that form. Boy, that gymnastics training is really paying off.

Playing in the mud can be likened to circumstances in life:

You can either face things head on

Or lay around and wallow in it.

One thing is for certain.......cousins + mud + a free afternoon in the grandparents yard......

well, it's enough to make just about anybody SMILE. (please notice the artwork on his back)

You know what they say....now there's a face ONLY a mother could love.....and an Aunt KK.

And due to the procrastination child's recent issues, we've decided it's never too early to start working ahead for next year's science project. How's this for a catchy title

• "With just the right soil, you CAN grow potatoes in you ears!"

That should be a definite winner. And that, my friends, is how I spent the remainder of Mother's Day. Digging out my son's ear. Ahhhh, a mother's work is never done.

But boy do I ever love that title. Mother. It's music, or in this case, mud, to my ears.