The best part of Mother's Day

Maybe it was the breakfast my children made for me--French toast.  Emma found a recipe for the egg/milk to bread ratio and decided to eight times it.  So that effectively used every egg in the house (and I needed to make a cake to take over to Adam's mom's house).  Turns out 16 eggs is more than you need for a few loaves of French bread...

(Turns out Adam was able to figure out how much of the leftover egg/milk mixture I should use for my cake.)

I loved those monkeys for trying.  Braeden insisted that he thought it was too many eggs but Emma is as stubborn as she is sometimes lacking in common sense so there you go.  It was delicious though.  And Braeden made sausage and used a meat thermometer to make sure it was done because raw meat--even questionably pink meat--is the worst.  So I felt loved.

Maybe the best part was the gifts.  My kids are pretty fast learners and after my birthday--and no gifts--they came through for Mother's Day.  The best part was that Adam was hardly involved--besides the great lantern he bought me.  The kids gave me flowers, jewelry, books and a message made out of Lego bricks.  It's hard to beat that.

I loved these books that JoLyn got at her baby shower and my children surprised me with them:

I don't think I'm too old for board books and I guess they don't either.  These books completely charm me.

Maybe the best part of Mother's Day was the primary kids singing in sacrament meeting.  They are so very cute and watching them sing always makes me happy, especially yesterday when they were all singing directly to their mothers.

Maybe the best part was when the boys Braeden's age sang, the priests quorum.  There are about ten of them and they are all approximately the size of my boy.  They stood in a row--which covered the entire stand--and sang, "Mother dear I love you so..."  It delighted me and made me want to laugh because I'd never heard such deep voices sing that song. 

Maybe the best part of Mother's Day was after the chaos of handing over the primary reins to the insistent men that wanted to give all the women a break, I slipped into Relief Society next to Janet and there was this calm and quiet in the room that is never achieved in the primary room where wiggles and giggles reign supreme.  Then we had chicken salad sandwiches and strawberries and mint brownies.  We also never get that in primary...

Maybe the best part of Mother's Day was after church when Braeden--who had helped in primary--told me that whatever I was paying those teachers wasn't enough.  Hah!  They don't get paid anything and it isn't enough.  (There are some pretty great teachers.)

Maybe the best part was when Mark presented me with a candy bar.  His primary teacher had given it to him to give to his mom.  Then Adam gave me another one, with the wrapper torn.

Mark had assumed the candy bar was for him.  His teacher stopped him from eating it and gave Mark a new one for his mom.  It's possible Mark was teased a lot on the way home from church about this.  He protested but what was he thinking? "Hey, I have a mom.  This must be meant for me."

(Mark's primary teacher doesn't get paid enough...)

Maybe the best part of the day was when we gathered at Geri's.  Adam's cousin from his dad's side and his aunt from his mom's side and some of their families were there too.  Plus it was warm enough that we could be outside for awhile.  Bonus!

Really though, the best part of the day was at its very end when I finally had a chance to call my mom (and my dad). 



Speaking of motherhood, here's an essay I wrote that is on our writing website.  Speaking of our writing group, I will tell you more about that tomorrow.