Happy Mother's Day!

...One day late. Two o'clock church really throws me off. Brandon and I were called to serve as the Sunday School teachers for a young adult class and we found out which lesson we were supposed to teach on Saturday so we were preparing our lesson all morning. Then we went to church, came home, ate dinner, talked to Justin on the Mother's Day call, and made chocolate chip peanut butter cookies that were amazing. So, needless to say, I didn't get to the blog (shocking, I know, since I've done at least one post per day lately-- sometimes more, haha). But I really wanted to pay tribute to all the wonderful mothers out there. There are so many wonderful women/mothers who have blessed my life. I'm so grateful to my mother in law, grandmothers, and aunts for all the wonderful things they have taught me and the love and encouragement they give me. Most of all, I want to thank my own mother. She is truly the best woman I know and I learn from her example every day. 

                                                                      

My mom taught me to love creating-- whether it is stories or paintings or music or elaborate games of make believe where my sisters and I would make tiny fairy houses in the back yard with moss, flower, stones, bark, and acorn tops. She would help us make little fairies with wooden heads, wire bodies covered with embroidery thread, and delicate clothing made from silk flower petals. She loved to let us play and often joined in with us. Once, she let us keep an elaborate house/village we'd set up in the family room for our American Girl Dolls for a full three days before she made us finally clean it up.

She encouraged us to find fun and adventure in everything we did from banging pots and pans and yelling as loud as we could on New Years to skinny dipping out in the middle of the lake. When my family moved to Austria for three years, my mom would take us on bike rides and picnics. We would sneak into farmers' fields and she'd hand us all a sketch book and tell us to paint the Schafberg (one of her favorite mountains) or write an essay on the colors we saw in the dancing Autumn leaves. She had a habit of making friends with cows she found (basically everywhere in Austria) and would use entire rolls of film capturing their smooth, creamy brown skin and bashful, big eyes on camera.

My mom is the best cook I know. Where I can follow a recipe, she creates recipes. Everything she makes is delicious. She is also incredibly generous. Growing up we always had people either living with us for a while or coming to dinner all the time. If people are passing through and stop at our house, she always sends them with a bag full of food. She loves to feed the missionaries and she treats them like her own sons.

My love of books is in large part due to my mom. She and my dad would read to us kids as we were growing up and we loved to talk about what books we were reading together. Her encouragement and praise made me want to read and learn more and then write my own stories. Her passion and enthusiasm for knowledge is contagious. Her desire to learn that which is good and also to be good is a constant source of strength and encouragement for me.

The love I have for my mom has only magnified since I became a mother myself. Each time I watch Hudson's eyelids flutter in sleep, feel his warm breath as I kiss his sweet face, see his joyful, mischievous grin and trusting eyes, or feel his soft, delicate cheek under my finger I love my mom just a little bit more.

Thank you, mom, for teaching me what is right and wrong, what it means to be happy, how to have fun, how to be kind, and most importantly how to be a mother.

I love you!