The Best Mother's Day Yet!

I was treated to a wonderful Mother's Day. It was the best Mother's Day yet! It was perfectly simple, and I loved every minute of it!

Sunday mornings are always busy because we are at church by 8:30 a.m., and with three girls in the house to get beautified, it's pretty hectic. ;) Jeff and Elaina got up early and went to the donut shop and came home with donuts and a nice, big, Mt. Dew Polar Pop for me for my Mother's Day breakfast! YUMMY! I was so excited (and so were the girls)!

The girls enjoying a Mother's Day breakfast of donuts.

Then, the girls gave me their homemade cards. Those really didn't surprise me. Elaina let that out earlier in the week that they had made them for me. When we were coloring cards for their grandmas, and I was explaining to them why we were sending their grandmas cards, she said, "But, Mommy, we already made your wonderful pictures. Daddy hides them. Then, we go to church, and after church, we will hide them behind our backs and say, 'SURPRISE!'" Then, she stopped abruptly, looked at me with BIG eyes, and said, "Uhhh . . . I not say that. I not tell you that." It was so funny! She realized after getting excited and telling me all of that that she was supposed to wait. It was really sweet. It's hard because we teach the girls not to keep secrets from us. We do this for their protection. We tell them that they are always to tell us about things, and we try to explain the difference between a surprise and a secret, and that we don't keep secrets from each other. On one of my cards, Jeff had the girls tell him ten "Things We Want To Tell Momma." Here's what they were: (I love the first two that Jeff said came immediately out of Elaina's mouth. She has such a love for Jesus at such a young age.)

1. Jesus Loves You! (Elaina)
2. Jesus Lives! (Elaina)
3. Kitty Cat (Emily)
4. Grrr . . . (Emily's ferocious growl!)
5. Ice cream (Elaina)
6. Wa-Wa Potty! (Emily - translation: "I have to go pee in the potty!")
7. Poo-Poo Can-Nee (Emily - translation: "I have to #2 in the potty, and I want a piece of
candy when I'm done!")
8. You are beautiful. (Elaina)
9. Thank you. (Elaina and Emily)
10. We love you! (Elaina and Emily)

We have also been working with Elaina on how to write her name, so she worked on writing her name on my cards as well. Right now, her favorite letter is a because there are two in her name, and she likes to say, "Circle with a stick," so I had a lot of a's on my cards.

When it was time to leave for church, we decided to take a few pictures. Usually, I am the one taking the pictures, so there are usually more pictures of Daddy with the girls than there are of me with the girls. So, this morning, Daddy took the pictures. Here we are getting ready to leave for church for the morning.

My beautiful girls

Elaina wanted to stand on a step to show how big she was for this picture.

Silly girl!

Oh, how blessed I am! LOVE THEM!

The girls love their baby!

Elaina and her dear friend, Hannah, at church. So cute!

We usually don't get home from church until 12:15 p.m., so we are always hungry and tired! We decided to come home and warm up some quick leftovers for lunch and get girls down for naps. Before we had lunch though, the girls each came walking into my bedroom with gifts behind their backs for me. I love Willow Tree figurines, and each of them had one picked out for me. Of course, Jeff helped some. He wanted each of the girls to give me one that would remind me of them in a special way. Emily gave me "Tenderness." Emily likes to be held like the child in the figurine is being held. She loves to snuggle, so I will always think of her when I see this figurine. Elaina gave me "The Dancer." How appropriate! She is my little dancer. She loves to dance! She dresses up every day, sometimes all day long, and dances to music on a cd, or to music that she sings herself. She makes up dances - very interpretive might I add. ;) She loves to dance with her Daddy, too. She loves to do her gymnastics in the house. So of course, this will always make me think of her. The gifts were a huge surprise, and I loved them!

Emily's gift to me - "Tenderness"

Elaina's gift to me - "The Dancer"

The girls took naps, and Jeff and I relaxed on the couch for the afternoon and did a few things that we needed to get done. For dinner, we went out for Mexican. It was YUMMY! I think Emily enjoyed it the most. She chowed down on chips, salsa, cheese sauce, beans and rice! It was so fun to see her enjoy it so much. After dinner, we came home, had ice cream and played outside.

It was a wonderful day! I was treated so well, and was definitely shown how loved and appreciated I am. I am so blessed that God gave me such a beautiful, wonderful family. I have the greatest husband who is also the greatest father to our precious girls, and my girls are so wonderful! I have to remember during those times that I get frustrated or those times when my girls aren't perfect like I wished they would be, that I am so blessed to have a husband and children who love the Lord and that I can go to HIM with all of my fears and frustrations of daily parenting. It is my prayer that I be a Godly example to my children and teach them about Jesus and how much HE loves them. I am truly not worthy!

30 weeks with #3! - Mother's Day 2009

Me and my girls (Elaina 3 yrs. 4 months; Emily 1 week shy of her 2nd birthday!)
Mother's Day 2009