Mothers' Day Tea

On Friday, my daughter's preschool had a Mothers' Day Tea for us.  The kids were so excited to show their moms the classroom, and their favorite "work."  Flannery and her friends kept saying, "Look!  This is my mom!" to one another.  It was really sweet. 

Flannery showed me where she does "spelling work" and where they sing their scales (the piano).  She even played some notes and let me feel the piano strings vibrate while she played, which was neat.  I especially liked that the teachers had the kiddos serve their moms the food and tea.  The kids were so proud pouring tea into tiny cups for us!

The best part of the visit was just watching Flanna with her sweet classmates.  She has such kind, silly, and just generally good friends at her school.  I know she's going to miss them when we move. 

Do you still know any friends you had from preschool?  I'm lucky enough to say I do! 

Mothers' Day Starts Early

Today, Flanna's school had a sweet mothers' day tea, complete with cupcakes. It was such fun to get to visit her school and see all her favorite "work" that she does there. After school, we had an impromptu visit to the museum. It was a fabulous day (stiflingly hot, but still fabulous), and I felt lucky to start my mothers' day weekend off so well.

Oh, another neat thing--Flannery decorated an "F" for me by gluing beads on it all by herself. I had bought it for her to hang in her room, but once she started working on it, she decided that it would be a gift for me. And now I think it's going to look really nice in my room.







Then, at the end of the day, when I was putting Flanna to bed, I thanked her for the sweet gifts and card she had made for me, and was telling her how much I appreciated the work she put into them. And she said,

"Well, mom, that's because I love you."

And that, folks, was the best mothers' day gift I think I've ever gotten.



What's the best mothers' day gift you've ever gotten, or given?

Be the Memory Keeper

One of the things that makes me and my family happiest is sharing happy memories together. So, as a part of my happiness project, I've made a resolution to try to be the storekeeper of happy memories for my family. I've started lots of little projects to work toward this resolution--a scrapbook for Flannery, a family tree record for both sides of our family, and more recently, I've been trying to make a DVD for the grandmothers of all the videos we have of Flannery's life so far. This weekend, as Mothers' Day is fast approaching, I've spent a ton of time on the video project, and I actually finished it! I now have a finished product--a DVD with 4 chapters (from infant to 3 year old). It's not perfect, but it's done! My husband, daughter, and I watched it today. It's really adorable. Flanna screamed and laughed and fell off the couch a few hundred times as we were watching it. I guess it was a hit!

One of my favorite times from our Easter family get-togethers was playing the piano with Flanna and Robi's mom (see the photo above!) But a really close second was when Robi's dad and aunt told some stories about Robi's extended family. I was so glad to hear some of these stories, and couldn't believe that Robi's cousins hadn't heard the stories, either. Good thing we sat around sharing memories that day!

Here's one of the doozies: Robi's aunt told the story that his great-grandma Lula had just had her first daughter, and the baby was around 3 months old when they had to move to another house. So, they packed up an old truck with all of their things, and they sat in the front of the truck. On the way to the new house, the truck hit a huge bump, and Lula was thrown out and was run over by the truck. (I guess this was before seat-belts!) The baby was fine somehow, but Lula had broken ribs, & some other injuries, and was taken to the hospital. She stayed there for many months, unable to walk or to take care of her baby. A doctor at the hospital actually asked Lula if he and his wife (who were unable to have kids) could adopt her baby. Lula seriously considered it, because she was in such bad shape, but ultimately, she refused. (I guess family helped take care of the baby during this time?) Anyway, after a few months, Lula was laying in bed, and she "saw" some tiny angels dance from the open hospital window to the foot of her hospital bed. They circled around her dancing for a few minutes, and then went back out the window. At that point, she decided that she was going to try to get up and walk, and she did. She went back home soon after and took care of her baby, and also had other children after that (doctors had told her she wouldn't be able to have more children because of the accident). She heard years later that the doctor who had asked to adopt her baby had committed suicide. She was so glad she hadn't subjected her baby to a "better" life that would actually end in tragedy.

Crazy stuff, huh?



What cool stories from your family do you just love?