Mother's Day

How was your Mother's Day?

Mine was fantastic.

Around 6:15 Mr. Orange came into the room and started whispering to Mr. Blue.  I promptly fell back to sleep and did not stir until 7:45 when Mr. Blue and the kids came into the room singing, "Happy Mother's Day to You!"  Mr. Blue was carrying a tray full of breakfast so I sat up and wiped the sleep out of my eyes while he set it on my lap.  He and the kids had made me waffles and fruit.  Yum.  Miss Pink cuddled up beside me and stole a waffle off my plate before I could even pick up my fork.  You snooze you lose I guess.  :)

Mr. Orange could barely wait for me to finish eating before he said, "Mom, now it's time for your scavenger hunt!"  I followed the clues until they led to Miss Pink's closet.  (There has been a sign on her door that said - DO NOT ENTER please.)  Inside the closet were some cards and some flowers.  Each of the kids picked out a bouquet of flowers for me.  It was very sweet.

(Mr. Blue told me that as soon as Mr. Orange woke him up, Mr. Orange put him to work.  He chose pictures off the computer to use as the cards, helped Mr. Blue make the waffles and then Mr. Orange sliced my strawberries and oranges so that they would look "fancy".  He also made up all of the scavenger hunt clues.)

The kids were wonderful the entire day.  They were even (somewhat) perfect angels at church.

After church they treated me to some delicious frozen burritos.

Then we needed to get out of the house so we walked to the park across the street.  I handed my big camera to Mr. Orange and he snapped away.  (I'll post some of his pics another day.)  I absolutely loved watching him take pictures.  He would get so excited about every shot.

I did have him take a picture of me.

Hey, why not?  It's my day - and my family always teases me that there are never any pictures of me ANYWHERE!

 The kids spent a lot of time up in the trees and on top of the slides at the park.

 All too soon it was time to come home.

The kids chose what they wanted to make for me.

We had:

(white) pasta with Mr. Blue's sauce

shrimp

broccoli

(I was allowed in the kitchen long enough to make a zucchini/avocado salad)

I was definitely spoiled.

I am so grateful that I am a mother to these two.  They teach me so much and help me to see the "bigger picture".  I love them with all of my heart.  Throughout the day they would give me little hugs and kisses, hold my hand or look at me and say, "I love you".  It just doesn't get any better than that.

My Mother's Day post would be incomplete if I didn't talk about two other mother's.

I love my mom.  I don't know very many mother's out there who still plan parties, complete with games, for their 30+ year old kids, but my mom sure does.  I love parties at her house.  She has helped me through so many things and always has a listening ear.  I love showing up at her office, with kids in tow, and she acts like she has all the time in the world for us.  She is a wonderful mother and I love her.  You can read more about her awesomeness here.

I also love Mr. Blue's mom.  I know people don't like to admit that they love their mother's-in-law, but I really do.  My MIL has treated me like her own daughter since day one.  She inspires me by the way that she sees beauty in everyone and everything.  She loves the Gospel and bears her testimony frequently to her children and, more importantly, her grandchildren.  It is always a treat to be around her and I love her.

mother's day

I'll post more about my Mother's Day later, but for now, I wanted to talk about my mom.

I love my mom.

She's totally crazy.  Come and join us for a birthday party and you'll know what I mean.

She is patient.  When I was young (okay, so I was in high school) she wanted me to help her in the backyard with some yard work.  Being totally afraid of bugs and bratty I refused to help.  Instead of yelling at me, or taking something away from me, or whatever else she could have done, she calmly made a deal with me:  She would not ask me to help her in the yard for the rest of the summer if I would
do all of the ironing for everyone in the house every week.  I loved to iron and agreed.  I am so grateful that she was patient with me that day.  Although she didn't realize it, I would watch her as she came in and out of the house while she was gardening and I would see the pure joy on her face of having spent time outside in her garden.  She loved (still does) to make the yard beautiful.  If we couldn't find her inside the house once the flowers started to bloom, we knew that we could find her outside talking to her flowers.  Her example has led me to desire to make my yard beautiful as well, now that I have one, however small it may be.

She is (as my sister so appropriately calls her) the "fairy grandmother".  Whenever one of us has a baby she swoops in with her bag of tricks and spends a week us.

I had a difficult and looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong delivery with Mr. Orange.  Mr. Orange spent some time in the NICU.  My mom called every day to make sure we were doing okay.  When he was released from the hospital, Mom came and spent a week at my home.  Because the delivery was so difficult, I had a hard time getting back on my feet.  It was painful to stand, sit, or adjust whatever position I was in.  If Mr. Orange cried, it was hard to get to him.  My mom was literally my arms and legs for that first week home.  She held him, changed him, brought him to me, did my laundry...

I had a better delivery with Miss Pink - scheduled c-section.  Mom came with her bag of tricks and played with Mr. Orange.  It was September and the two of them pulled out all of my overgrown vegetables and flowers, then planted new tulips, pansies and other things that would be beautiful in the spring.  She made batches of cookies, dinner, ironed, cleaned bathrooms, helped me with a certain near-disaster (mom, you should DEFINITELY know what I am talking about), and took us for drives.  She would also talk to me during late-night feedings.

My mom will also drop everything to help out.

A few examples:

A few months after Mr. Orange was born I found a lump in my breast.  It was determined that I would need surgery.  Mom came and watched my little two month old while I went to surgery.  She stayed to make sure we were okay.  (The lump was a fatty deposit, probably caused from the nursing.)

The next spring, Mr. Blue came home from work so sick.  We went to the insta-care and were told to go to the ER.  After two hours of waiting I left Mr. Blue there and went to take Mr. Orange home.  Not sure what to do I called Mom.  She was out to dinner and left immediately to come up and watch Mr. Orange while I went back to the hospital.  Mr. Blue needed an emergency appendectomy.  Mom and I spent that night talking on her bed about anything and everything.

After Miss Pink was born I found another lump in my breast.  Not wanting to mess up nursing and figuring it was the same thing I had with Mr. Orange, I decided to wait to have surgery.  I had surgery the first week of July.  Mom came to watch the kids.  Mr. Blue and I returned home later in the day to find mom and the kids dripping in sweat.  Our AC had gone out and they were sitting the house without fans.  They did take a drive to cool off she told us.

She has come to spend the night with me a time or two when Mr. Blue has been gone on business trips.

Another time she drove to my house at 4:30 in the morning to watch my kids while I trained for a marathon.

Most recently she helped me through my miscarriage.  Not only did she drop all of her meetings (on more than one occasion) to come and help me, she also called and sent cards, just to let me know she was thinking of me.

Those are just a few of the reasons I love my mom.

She's the best.

I love you Mom!

miss you

My mom called me last week to inform me that a dear friend of our family, Brenda Allsop, had passed away on Monday (the 10th).  She had been sick with arthritis and melanoma for many years.  Yesterday I was able to attend her funeral.  It was a beautiful tribute to a wonderful woman.  She leaves behind five children ages 26, 20, 19, 17, and 15.

Her children and husband said many times how grateful she was for everything around her.  Instead of being angry at the world for the struggles she was going through, she decided to make the best of the situation and do what she could to serve those around her.  She wasn't able to do many of the things that she wanted to with her kids, but she gave them her love, shared her testimony with them, and gave them her time.  They also talked about her infectious smiles and laugh.  I can only imagine how much she will be missed by her dear husband and children.

As I was sitting at the funeral I was flooded with memories of Brenda.

When I was young our families, along with one or two others, would go boating almost every Saturday.  We would "synchronize" swim (parents and kids included), ski until we couldn't any longer, and just enjoy time together.  We would laugh and play all day.

On New Year's Eve we would get together and play silly games, eat and eat and eat, play more games, and at midnight we would all run outside banging on pots and pans to ring in the new year.

When I was 10, I started to babysit for their family.  I spent many Friday and Saturday nights over the next 8 years playing with their kids.  I nannied for them one summer.  Several summers they even took me to Lake Powell with them so that I could help them look after their two youngest (at the time) and play with their older daughter.  Memories of those trips to Lake Powell have been floating through my mind the past few days.  Here are a few:

Kenny G. in the truck for 5 hours.  Brenda loved Kenny G.  I was pretty sure she was trying to torture the 13 year old in the backseat for 5 hours when she would pull out those CDs.  :)

One time we arrived at Bullfrog around midnight.  We didn't have anywhere to sleep since the houseboat was tied up in the marina.  Not phased by the complete lack of light, they launched the boat.  My duty was to sit on the front of the boat with a huge flashlight and watch fro rocks that were barely poking up out the water.  The kids waved their flashlights around and Doug and Brenda tried to navigate over to where they thought the houseboat was tied up.  We finally found it I had to drop the flashlight quick and then grab onto the houseboat.  Being the scrawny 13 or 14 year old that I was I grabbed onto the the houseboat with my hands but then the ski boat started to float away.  Next thing I knew I had my hands on the houseboat, my toes curled under the rail of the ski boat and I was looking at the water.  Somehow I managed to get the two pulled together.  We unloaded and spent the night tied to the buoy.

On another trip we were headed home and the tires blew out on the trailer.  Doug left Brenda, their oldest daughter and me on the side of the road with the boat, and off he went with the two little ones to get a new tire or two.  Brenda was so calm.  We sat in the boat and played games, told stories, snacked on anything that was left, and truly enjoyed our time waiting for Doug to come back.  A few hours later he came back.  The tires were put on the trailer and off we went.

We stopped for dinner and his youngest son threw up all over Doug.  The rest of us weren't finished eating, so Doug just took off his shirt like nothing had happened and we all finished our meal while he sat there without a shirt.

Same trip, it was late as we came through Spanish Fork Canyon.  Doug looked at the gas gauge and about the time he said, "Brenda, I don't know if was have enough gas" we stopped completely.  Luckily Doug had some gas leftover from the boat so he used the little gas can to fill us up and we were on our way again.  It was always an adventure with them!

About the time Mr. Blue and I got married, Brenda had been battling arthritis for quite some time, and had just been diagnosed with melanoma.  She was given 6 months to 1 year to live.  It was special having her be part of my wedding.  She wasn't sure if she would ever live to see one of her children get married.  At the time, she was worried that she wouldn't see her 7 year old get baptized.

When Mr. Orange was born, Brenda sent him his blanket as a gift.  He attached to that blanket like nobody's business.  The flannel has long since fallen off, but he still insists on having it by his side at (almost) all times.

Brenda, you will be missed.  Thank you for all of the memories and the example that you set as a wife and mother.  I love you and your family.

a note

Dear Mr. Blue,

I miss you.  I'm not sure why I have had such a hard time with you being gone, you have had to travel for work before.  Maybe it's because you haven't traveled for awhile, or maybe it's because you have been gone for an entire weekend (usually you are home by Friday), maybe it's because I know that you are a little miserable, or maybe it's because our sweet little Miss Pink hasn't gone to bed until almost 11:00 every night you have been away.  (I'm crossing my fingers that with daylight savings she'll go to sleep by 10:00 tonight.)  Drive safely.  I will be in bed before you come home, please wake me up to say goodnight.

I love you!

karen