Catch of the day

It's fishing season again! 

Look how glad Ben was, reeling in this bass on Mother's Day!

It makes my day when the kids are happy: 

Happy kids = happy mom! This boy knows to tell me.

He also knows this mom loves him because (he wrote this in a note at school for me for Mother's Day) that I tell that to him a lot, LOL!

We recently celebrated this sweet boy's ninth birthday with a storebought choc cake. Younger sis painted some pictures for him and picked green his favorite color to write out his name. I made us some cake pops as an additional sweet treat for the day. 

Thankful we got to squeeze in that overnight fishing trip over the Mother's Day weekend. Boy, were we exhausted, the parents, yes. But isn't parenthood, motherhood like that, too? It's hard work. Yet not without the blessings for us to count.

May there be many a sweet catch of the day like that!

That made Ben's day. And yes, mine, also! 

Slow down, don't rush

These pretty in pink dogwood couldn't have been a better reminder for me to take five! 

Here, for you to stop and smell the flowers, too :)!

Perfect pork tenderloin... 

I will also like to share this recipe for "perfect pork tenderloin"*. 

The secret to retaining the moisture in this delicious recipe must be in letting the meat continue to SLOWcook itself still in the high heat after turning off the oven. It's true, isn't it, we can't hurry through something and expect as good results.

Gotta love it also when my youngest had to tell me, "Don't rush, that's why we don't rush!", after her brother and I slipped and fell separately and phew, were ok again (I'll spare you the drama). 

Hurry up and slow down, let's remind each other to do that.

*Works for me: The high heat in this recipe translates to a shorter time the oven has to be left on. The advantage is after turning OFF the oven, I can go take care of other things. Such as heading back out with the kids for their afterschool activities, leaving the pork to continue to cook itself in the remainder oven heat. And dinner is ready just as we come home! 

I also find that this recipe works really well when you use a big slab of meat (3-4 lbs and more). That quantity is great for deliberate leftovers for another meal. Or for feeding more people when having friends over! 

Bring on the sunshine

We're loving the spring blooms, not the allergies, but definitely bring on the sunshine!

Have you noticed how sunshine can be an instant mood lifter? Just drawing the curtains to let light in can make a difference.

Look *up*, a heart-shaped cloud...

(About 70F, 20C, and that's warm according to the kids, coming out of freezing temps).

As the sun sets later now, being able to drive home in daylight still after my children's afterschool activities in the evenings hopefully will help me and help them also to keep going with what we have to do before calling it a day. These last months of school are busy, busy, with projects, and testing like exams also, and more events. I'm thankful to have been able to volunteer at my youngest's preschool events and also join her on the many fieldtrips this schoolyear as a mommy driver and especially as her mom, of course. She likes that, too :)!