Spoiled and Blessed

I've really been feeling like the Queen of the Castle lately. After our camping trip Jeremiah and I got the house ready for company that we thought would be arriving on Sunday. Apparently, we're morons and can't look at a calendar and really had to hustle when we learned that Uncle Aaron and Aunt Mary were coming Thursday night. -I think we pulled it off all right.

Also, because of our inability to communicate dates I had already made plans to go out of town with my parents for my SIL's baby shower. So I took off the morning after our company arrived and left Jeremiah at home with the kids and the company. It was a fun, carefree weekend for me as it included the baby shower, shopping and a rodeo. Although it was speckled with oddities and sadness as another SIL's mother passed away.

I came home to find my MIL and Aunt Mary cleaning my kitchen and talking about how hot it was out on the deck and "oh, you should feel how hot it is on the deck." I know my deck gets hot, and I was, in all truthfulness, annoyed that there were telling me how hot it was on my deck. Like I don't live there? But once I got out there, I understood what they meant. It was a ploy to get me outside to see the new canopy covering the deck, the new porch swing in the new shade under the canopy, and the new picnic table/bench set from Mary and Aaron.

(BTW: I've asked that they not do things like this, but that only seems to be a challenge to Aaron to do so. So instead of protesting I think I'll just embrace their generosity and continue to express my gratitude no matter how over-the-top and unnecessary their gifts are. But I did tell them that if they wanted to say thank you for letting them stay with us, we would have been happy with a box of Otter Pops.)

Then the next day my MIL showed up with a Maple tree for me to plant in my backyard. (I guess everyone was telling us that our young landscape was in desperate need of shade.) I got the tree planted - thank you, Lynette - and then Mary took my picture in its shade. I really love it and I can't wait for it to grow big and tall and turn red in the fall.

I'm really grateful for all the improvements to my yard. The deck now feels like more of an extension of the house and I love seeing the new tree in the yard. The only problem is that now I don't go past the deck!