Calm with Mom or a Weekend with Owen

Owen and I are having a ridiculously good time together.  Owen has named the weekend Calm with Mom.  We miss Leo and Ernie but we've talked to them a couple of times and Leo sounds wonderfully happy too (the more excited the rest of us get the more reserved Ernie gets....he says it's to balance us all out).

Thursday evening Owen and I were talking, trying to plan out the weekend.  I suggested that we could order pizza one night thinking that would be a treat.  Owen thought long and hard and finally said, "what I'd really like is steak."  Uh, o.k. Owen.  So after work on Friday I obediently went to Old Time Meat and Deli and bought....steak.  Ribeye to be exact.  Owen got home from school and was very excited to hear that the steak was in the house.  He played some video games, we chatted, I looked at recipes and then I made him get off the games because it was too nice outside.  He grabbed a basketball and we went down to the school.  He ran into a kid he knows and played basketball with him and his father and from across the playground I could see the aura of extreme happiness floating over him.  He chatted nonstop all the way back home.

Later we hung out in the kitchen dancing to Phil Lee and then the Backsliders as we got dinner ready.  We did a classic dinner of steak, mashed potatoes and spinach.  Owen was quite pleased with it, as was I honestly.  Then we watched a bit of tv before I convinced him it would be MUCH more fun to watch tv upstairs in our bedroom.  Yes, I convinced this boy to get into bed with me and watch Clone Wars from there while I read.  We shared a couple of chocolate chips and giggled a lot.  Lord I love this boy.

are those BUDS on that tree?