Gifts....

This has been quite the week for hall of fame gifts. Today at playgroup, I received another great gift -- one that I will always treasure. One of my neighbors recently delivered twins (these are babies 4 and 5) and was on bed rest since she was 15 weeks pregnant. They thought she (or the babies) had something called twin/twin syndrome, where one of the twins takes the majority of the nutrients, and thus one is malnourished, and the other grows too large. It was touch and go for several months, but thankfully she delivered healthy baby girls. All of the families in our neighborhood took turns making dinner for her husband, 3 kids, and a caregiver (her mom, mother in law, aunt, etc...). This morning at playgroup she gave us books that she had made (I think at mypublisher.com) and they were all of the recipes for the food we had all given them over the past several months. It was a cross between a scrapbook in that she added journaling and pictures of the twins, and a cookbook. I was one of those wonderful, heartfelt gifts that I'll always keep. It's a tangible reminder of what a great neighborhood we live in, and someday when our kids are grown and some of us have moved on, it will always being me back to these cherished days -- when our kids were young and we spent the days playing together... If only time could stand still....

This afternoon after naps we are heading over to one of our neighbor's house (Matt and Jodi) for a little Cool Basil take-out. All I can say, is YUMMY! It's a well known restaurant in West Des Moines that has great spicy Thai food. Since the kids won't eat it, it'll probably be pizza for them! I guess we're all going to get our fill of junk food tonight. Matt and Jodi have a little girl, Abby, who's a little younger than Katherine so they have a blast playing together. Katherine can't wait to go over there!

I started Weight Watchers on Wednesday, and so far so good.... Lisa and I are going to have ongoing contests to see who can lose the most weight... I'm *sure* I'll beat her! LOL! OH, the good times -- dieting!