two great days

 this is the boy who very quickly will be creaming me in basketball games

 Shawn and Sky, last year

We had a bunch of friends over last night for a pot luck.  It has been a long time since we hosted something here, other than my kids' birthday parties.  We had many kids in the house, which I loved, including five kids under age four, a couple of teen girls for our girls, and a playmate for Shawn.  The evening ended with interesting intelligent conversation among all of the adults while the girls read to the little ones.  I was happy.  I made a huge pot of lentil soup, and a salad using some greens from our tiny garden.  I started the cooking a little late in the day due to spending the earlier part of the day helping at Annabel's Annie rehearsal (Annabel plays Lily).  I looked at a lentil soup recipe from Moosewood, to get the basic idea, but didn't follow it.  I added mustard seeds.  It was a hit, and we had plenty for leftovers.  One of the teen girls slept over with my girls.  They crammed two mattresses into Annabel's room, and stayed up later than us, talking.

Today Sky made French toast and then we lazed around and did a million dishes and a few loads of laundry.  It was cool and cloudy and windy, the way I love it.  Shawn watched a movie, Gary watched football at a friend's house, Annabel went to babysit, and Sky and I talked.  Then Shawn asked me to play with him.  I told him we could shoot some baskets.  The next thing I knew I was playing a game of one-on-one with him -- 1/2 court, but still.  We played to ten, went into triple overtime, and tied before I said, after catching my breath, I have to go in and take a shower and make dinner (which brings me back to the lentil soup, which I reheated).  And it was a hit again.

While I was cooking Shawn convinced me to play Scrabble with him, and we started a game that we finished after dinner, getting Gary involved in helping both of us.  Gary is a million times better at Scrabble than me (or Shawn) and so the game got pretty competitive.  Shawn beat me even though I spelled zinc and earned 45 points for it, triple word score.

I love my boys.  I love my girls.  I am grateful for days like these.