Mama’s Day 2009

I’m telling you, it’s hard to get back into the habit of blogging when you haven’t posted in a few weeks! We’ve had lots going on around here.

I had a blast at the Digital Scrapbook Memories retreat last weekend. Loved seeing good friends and making new ones, learning new things, teaching fun techniques and projects, and honestly, it was good to get away from the regular routine for a few days. I knew my kids were in good hands (THANKS to Jaden and my mom and dad) so it was wonderful. And it was WONDERFUL to come back home to my kids’ excited hugs and kisses and proclamations of “Happy Mother’s Day!” even though it was Saturday night. Getting away is good for moms, because then we appreciate and miss and love our kids even more!! And our husbands, of course!

So Mother’s Day was lovely. Everyone was so sweet. Jaden was brave enough to take all 3 kids to Costco on a Saturday (even I don’t do that!) to pick out a few things for me. Brandon suggested a bounce house that he knew I would love, and Annie told her daddy that I would love a dinner. They picked out a huge bouquet of flowers–Brandon said that the big sunflower on top meant “Love”. Annie wanted me to have pink flowers so they bought me a flat of petunias for our yard! Yay! They also got me strawberries which I also love, and surprised me with a super clean house, organized basement, and the van cleaned inside and out. The kisses and hugs were bonus gifts. I loved it all. Brandon even made a little microphone and sang me a special song. Another bonus gift–the kids were all well-behaved in sacrament meeting at church! A small miracle. And I was happy to get a picture with me and my three kids after church. Simple joys.

I love the little questionnaires the kids fill out in school and primary. Here’s what Brandon’s looked like, I love seeing it in his own handwriting:

Annie’s went like this:

My mother has: brownish bluish hair.

My mother is “I don’t know” years old.

My mother’s favorite color is pink.

My mother’s shoe size is big. (I must have ginormous feet if both of my kids gave that answer!)

My mother likes to make food.

My mother is happy when driving the car. (Huh?)

My mother is sad when I don’t make a card. (not sure what that means!)

The funniest thing I ever saw my mother do was make funny faces. (Yet another thing I do that makes a big, important impact on my kids–since they BOTH mention that! Hopefully they will remember other things I do or teach them, ha ha!!)

I like when my mother gives hugs.

I like to clean up for my mother.

My mother’s favorite food is chicken.

My mother does not like to eat cereal. (Oh, yes I do! But not as much as I love Carnation Instant Breakfast and milk!)

If I could give my mother anything, I’d give her a mommy car.

The first thing my mother does when she wakes up is I wake her up.

I love my mother because she makes me the best cakes.

I LOVE THESE!! So funny to see from their point of view.

Brandon also made me one at school. My favorite answers were these:

She weighs 58 pounds. (SWEET!)

She looks pretty when she goes to the temple and when she gets married. (I guess I need to do those things more often! Well, one of them.

I wanted to share a quote from one of my favorite speakers, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, in a talk about motherhood that has meant a lot to me over the years, and maybe will inspire any of you out there:

Do the best you can through these years, but whatever else you do, cherish that role that is so uniquely yours and for which heaven itself sends angels to watch over you and your little ones. . . Remember, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

One young mother wrote to me recently that her anxiety tended to come on three fronts. One was that whenever she heard talks on LDS motherhood, she worried because she felt she didn’t measure up or somehow wasn’t going to be equal to the task. Secondly, she felt like the world expected her to teach her children reading, writing, interior design, Latin, calculus, and the Internet— all before the baby said something terribly ordinary, like “goo goo.” Thirdly, she often felt people were sometimes patronizing, almost always without meaning to be, because the advice she got or even the compliments she received seemed to reflect nothing of the mental investment, the spiritual and emotional exertion, the long-night, long-day, stretched-to-the-limit demands that sometimes are required in trying to be and wanting to be the mother God hopes she will be.

But one thing, she said, keeps her going: “Through the thick and the thin of this, and through the occasional tears of it all, I know deep down inside I am doing God’s work. I know that in my motherhood I am in an eternal partnership with Him. I am deeply moved that God finds His ultimate purpose and meaning in being a parent, even if some of His children make Him weep. “It is this realization,” she says, “that I try to recall on those inevitably difficult days when all of this can be a bit overwhelming. Maybe it is precisely our inability and anxiousness that urge us to reach out to Him and enhance His ability to reach back to us. Maybe He secretly hopes we will be anxious,” she said, “and will plead for His help. Then, I believe, He can teach these children directly, through us, but with no resistance offered. I like that idea,” she concludes. “It gives me hope. If I can be right before my Father in Heaven, perhaps His guidance to our children can be unimpeded. Maybe then it can be His work and His glory in a very literal sense.”

Yours is the grand tradition of Eve, the mother of all the human family, the one who understood that she and Adam had to fall in order that “men [and women] might be” and that there would be joy. Yours is the grand tradition of Sarah and Rebekah and Rachel, without whom there could not have been those magnificent patriarchal promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob which bless us all. Yours is the grand tradition of Lois and Eunice and the mothers of the 2,000 stripling warriors. Yours is the grand tradition of Mary, chosen and foreordained from before this world was, to conceive, carry, and bear the Son of God Himself. We thank all of you, including our own mothers, and tell you there is nothing more important in this world than participating so directly in the work and glory of God, in bringing to pass the mortality and earthly life of His daughters and sons, so that immortality and eternal life can come in those celestial realms on high.

Elder Holland (Ensign May 1997, “Because She Is a Mother”)

I’m grateful beyond words to be a mom. Becoming a mother was a profound, defining moment in my life, and it has never been the same–in a positive way. And I’ve felt that again with each child we’ve welcomed into our family. I feel lucky. I’m proud that motherhood is something that defines me, along with all of my other roles. It’s something I dreamed about during my growing up years, and knew it would be a priority in my life. I embrace the highs as well as the lows, the frustrations and elations, and am striving to learn from all of these experiences. I know I am FAR from perfect and have a LOT to work on as a mother, but I love my kids with everything I have….and that has to count for something. It was indeed a happy Mother’s Day.

To my amazing mom, mother-in-law, grandmothers, family and friends—thank you for being wonderful examples to me and for inspiring me to be a better mom!