Happy, Happy Mother's Day!

Mama Kisses...

Kisses Sweetly Stolen...

Feet Kissed With Spring Soil...

Mama's Gentle Helping Hands...

And Happy Mothering Day to ALL!!!

I know...It's been a while...

Well I don't know if anyone will even notice that I have updated this blog or not but the time has come for me to face my fears and POST! I say fears because I guess I never realized the expectations that I had set up for myself to have the perfect blog. Shortly after my last post, my sweet aunt passed away and I was determined to write something clever in honor of her. In my failure to get that put together I just kept putting it off, and off, and off....until... Suddenly here we are almost two years later! I will let that go for now, but perhaps in the future I will tell you about how I miss her gentle spirit and genuine laugh.




The reason I decided to write something now is due to the latest achievement in my ever surprising little daughter's life. Seeing how the last few posts were about her eagerness to jump ahead of the expected developmental milestones, I want to tell you of her latest feats. Just to catch you up on the last year and a half, not only did she crawl at six months but she walked at 8 1/2 months, potty trained herself by 20 months and probably now thinks she's ready for kindergarten! But her latest thing is cracking us up even more! She has her first crush!!! When we went to Boise two weekends ago we visited our friends, the Mahoneys. Their oldest boy is none other than Ryan who I started watching at the age of 2 months old when I lived in Boise. Now he is eight (hard to believe!) Lyssa played with Ryan and his younger brother Michael for an hour or two and apparently that was enough. We got home and several days went by without any of us mentioning a thing... Then one day she said out of the blue, "I love Ryan!". (I'm not talking about a statement of fact, I'm talking about that way you say you love someone with your eyes twinkling, your head tilted, and your voice sighing the last half of their name." I just thought how cute it was that she remembered him, but that was only the beginning. Several times a day she asks to look at the pictures of him we took on our trip, giggling and dancing when she sees them. Not a day has gone by that she hasn't sighed and said, "Mommy, I love Ryan!". We just smile and say who else do you love? Sometimes we're on the list sometimes it's just "Gamma", "Boppa", and Maddo.

Happy 1st Mother's Day

I hope all of you had a good mother's day. My first Mom's Day was awesome! Elyssa had my favorite watch fixed and she bought me a beautiful Asian cast iron tea pot. Isn't she fabulous? Well ok, Chris helped her out a little. Anyway, for lunch we all went over to my aunt and uncle's for some of his amazing cooking. I mean YUM! Elyssa even got to see some chickens and she loved watching them run around. She also rode on Grandpa's shoulders and boy was she proud of herself! Did I mention My Aunt and Uncle's unbelievably beautiful garden?

My aunt told us of her encouragement from her own mother in law. She had offered her the greeting "Happy Mothering Day" because, though she has never given birth, she has nurtured many different creatures all the way from animals to humans in her lifetime. I find it fitting as I think of so many dear ones who long to have children of their own. These beautiful women should not be made to feel sad on a day the rest of us celebrate. I've been there, I know the pain of not receiving a carnation at church when so many others are. You're in my prayers!