Moms

 This photo was taken several years ago.  My mom, me and my mother-in-law.  How blessed I am to have such wonderful women in my life!  And seriously, I could not have a better mother.  She is patient, kind, loving, faithful, sweet, happy, optimistic, humble, snuggly, meek, calm, charitable, patient and all things wonderful.  Did I mention patient?  I want to be like her.

What a wonderful, happy day today has been.  I have been thoroughly spoiled, and I feel above and beyond blessed for my sweet family, and my children, who made me a mother.  I'm not close to the mother I thought I would be.  I'm not as wonderful as I want to be.  But you know what?  I'm becoming more and more ok with that.  I'm learning every day, and I celebrate what I can do.  And by golly, I love my kids.  

I love my kids.

I came downstairs this morning to this:

Isn't that awesome?  Nick had the kids paint a mural on this pegboard for my craft room, totally in secret to surprise me.  And I was.  And I love it.  I imagine my 70 year old self sewing pajamas for my grandkids, looking at that pegboard and thinking about my sweet children who were once so little.

But please stay little for a bit longer, ok?

Oh, and a lot of this was going on too this morning:

Girls happily making cards for me, along with the little things they made at school sitting out as a surprise.

And Nick had this ready and waiting for me too:

 It was delicious.  I enjoyed church very much, and especially the kids singing in sacrament meeting.  Everett was funny.  He gave me a bag of candy he'd prepared for me in his class and said, "These are for you to share with me!"  And later, "I like Mother's Day because I get candy."  We spent the day visiting our mothers and enjoying family.

Ok.  Other things.

We visited my family in the middle of the week, too.  My sister was in town, so we all got together.  My kids love going down to Grandpa's farm.

 This photo of Daisy cracks me up because #1, she's always doing weird things with her mouth lately, I think it's because she's growing top teeth; and #2, she hates the feel of grass, which is why her foot is way up high; and #3, I just can't get over those cute piggies.  And, I thought I'd gotten photos of all the kids, but apparently I missed one.  Sorry Ellie, I'll be sure to get a good one of you soon.

This makes me laugh too:

 Lainey had very thoughtfully shared her chocolate milk powder with Daisy by dumping it right on the floor.  How does one get chocolate milk powder off the floor?  Why lick it, of course!

Ok, just a few more things, I promise.  I need to work on shorter posts.

Everett was super excited to go camping with Dad for Father & Sons:

I hear it was a pretty great night, which ended with Everett puking in the car before coming home.  Oh well.

Us girls ate homemade pizza, painted toenails, watched a movie in mom and dad's bed and then slept there.  I'm pretty sure I'd like Father & Sons a whole lot better if we had 4 sons instead of 4 daughters.  ;)  It was a fun night all the same.

On Saturday, the kids needed naps.  Here is position #1:

 Aw, sweet.  What a good daddy.

Position #2 (when daddy's entire left side started going numb):

And finally, position #3:

Yep, I'm pretty sure it's time for me to go to bed now.  That looks really nice, even all neck-kinked.

And look, Daisy does stairs now:

 It certainly makes life a little more exciting around here.