Happy Mother's Day

Every year, Mother's Day just keeps on getting better and better. It's so fun to watch my kiddos be all secretive and everything about how they're going to help Daddy surprise me. This year, Tay and Rachey both made me things at school, and tried to be all sneaky about it when they brought them home. Rachel made me a bookmark, which I LOVE because I'm always reading, and I'm usually in the middle of several books at once so I always love a new bookmark. :) And Taylor made me a fun card and wrote that "Even though you make me clean the litter box, you are a good Mommy and I like how you take care of me, feed me good food, read me stories at night, and play with me." hmm...that card is definitely making it in the "keep until they're adults" box. It was hilarious.

The Primary's singing in Sacrament Meeting is always a highlight of my Mother's Day. This year was Brooklynn's first year singing as a Sunbeam. She was so excited to go up there. Two times she stood up to go up to the front and I had to ask her to sit down because it wasn't her turn yet. When it was time for them to sing, she made sure that she was standing right in front. It just cracked me up.

After church while we were waiting for dinner to come out of the oven, Andy took all of the kids up to our bedroom and I heard a lot of giggling and various exclamations of excitement. Each year, Andy always finds ways to make my day awesome. I love it. So, after a while of this secretiveness in the bedroom, they all come running down and Brooklynn blurts out everything they wrapped up for me. (and I pretend to have not heard a word of course)

Here she is, so excited for me to open my "Birthday Presents." We couldn't get her to understand that it wasn't my birthday. She is still convinced that it was my birthday on Sunday. Okay, so I look at this picture and realize that her face does not spell excitement...but trust me, she could hardly contain herself. :)
And, the rest of the pictures will be a bit blurry. This is because of the excitement of my children. They could hardly contain themselves, and it just made me laugh. Here they are telling me which gift to open first.So, Brooklynn convinced me to open her gift first. She had wrapped it all by herself. And she did a great job. I think she used at least a half roll of scotch tape on it. I finally got it open, and it was a picture that she had colored in her primary class. It was so cute of her to wrap it up for me. I loved it. Sometimes, I wonder why we don't just wrap up little notes and give them to each other every day...what a little sweetie.Okay, and I think the kids' favorite gift was the kitchen shears. Funny huh. I can't get over it. They wanted me to go straight into the kitchen and cut something with them. The kitchen shears are now located on top of the fridge. I'm suspicious. You can see Brooklynn's fascination with them...that spells D-A-N-G-E-R.

And this was my favorite gift. As you can tell by the blurriness of the picture, I have just been tackled by three (although you can only see two) hungry children, and I deserved it because I was holding a box of chocolate cremes...yum. I had to open them up right then, and it took a great deal of personal sacrifice to share. Yes, I admit. I'm selfish when it comes to chocolate cremes. My favorite is raspberry creme in dark chocolate. So good. Anyway...Andy knows my weaknesses very well. :)
Mother's Day always makes me realize how blessed I am. I couldn't ask for more loving, imaginative, intelligent, bright children. When they gather around me and I can see them bubbling over with excitement to give me handmade, self-wrapped gifts...and understand that that is their way of showing me how special I am to them...it really just makes everything that I do as a mother so much more meaningful. And it makes me wonder in amazement at how Heavenly Father has entrusted me...with all of the shortcomings that I have...to raise them.