Happy Mother's Day

I hope everyone had a very Happy Mother's Day!  I'm doing my best to keep up with our May, but it has been quite busy!  Starting off my Mother's Day week, Millie Janalee's preschool class had a Mother's Day Tea for their moms.  It was such a sweet tea!  The tables were decorated with things the children made for us and the inevitable fill in the blanks about their moms.  That's what I was most nervous about!  Haha!  You just never know what they will say!  In the center of the tables, there were small bouquets of flowers and precious teapots filled with tea.

The children began by lining up in the front of the room to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and sing a couple of Mother's Day songs for us.  They ended by singing a sweet blessing over our tea party.  The children had worked to make monkey bread for us, and we had strawberries with powdered sugar.  And, of course, we poured tea from the cute teapots!  All the while…Smith was walking around trying to eat everyone else's food.  By the end of the party, all the moms decided I needed the monkey bread recipe.  He was a fan!

Millie Janalee's teacher, Mrs. Becky, gathered the children as they finished their food to read I'll Love You Forever.  I had this book when I was growing up and can probably recite it myself.  But I still found myself in the back of the room blubbering like a baby as she read to the class.

Our time is just too precious.  And I am so guilty of wishing the minutes away and waiting for the next nap.  THESE are the days I will want to have back.  The innocence of toddlers and preschoolers.  Oh, they are so precious!

Millie Janalee is the one who first made me a mama.  After years (6 to be exact) of waiting and praying and hoping and crying…she entered this world and brought nothing but pure JOY to our family!  I really do not know how she got from that 6 pound 13 ounce baby to this 3.5 year old preschooler.  Why does it sting to think about it?  I do love watching her grow and learn, and each stage has been so much fun as we experience it together for the first time!

This Mother's Day, like every Mother's Day, my heart was full of joy and heartache.  I am reminded on Mother's Day, more than any other day, of the privilege I have to narrate these babies' loves stories.  It is one of my greatest joys in life!  A love story that involves two mamas.  One who carried them in her belly and one who carried them in her heart.  Twice loved!  What a testimony and gift God has written for their lives!  What an honor to be their mother!

After church, Russ and I ran into his mama on our way out.  I am forever thankful for this woman...for her sacrifices and love raising her own family.  I am grateful she raised Russ to be a caring, thoughtful, and humble man of God.  I married way over my head, and he knows I will  never live up to who his mom was as a young mother.  But he loves me anyway.

My mama had already left church to work on lunch for our family.  And THAT's what happens a lot.  She's busy taking care of things behind the scenes and rarely gets the spotlight or makes it into the pictures.  I am thankful for my mom and the lessons she continues to teach me about life.  Mainly - enjoy it!  And own your pitfalls.  Laugh it off and move on!  Life is too short.

Life is good.  And it is nice to be reminded of that from time to time.  Us moms can get into "the trenches" of life with littles and forget to soak it in.

Happy Mother's Day to all of us!