happy birthday, Mom!

I made the mistake of looking at my post from March 27 last year and decided that I summed it up very well! I have only this to add:

• She writes the best letters and cards. It always gives me a boost to read one, and I save them all.

• She is so complimentary to me that sometimes it's embarrassing! (as we say in our family: every mother crow thinks her baby's blackest!)

• She is the originator of good mail in my life.

• She sends my kids Easter eggs with money inside -- how cool is that?

• She made all of my clothes when I was a little girl. She put her sewing machine in my nursery and sewed away. I don't think she made Halloween costumes, though. She doesn't like Halloween. (but wait -- I do remember she made my little brother an E.T. costume one year!)
  

• She is always, always cold. If we are somewhere together and I think the temperature is just right, she will have on socks, sheepskin slippers, a sweatshirt around her shoulders and a pashmina or a blanket tucked around her lap and she will still feel cold. I still contend that it is better to be cold than to be hot (I'm always hot).
  

• She understands the pleasure of collecting, so she still gives me cookbooks even though I already have a cupboard full of them.

• She is extremely difficult to buy gifts for, since she seems to have access to everything cute and/or cool. Fortunately, she enjoys handmade gifts!

• She put up 9 Christmas trees in her home this year. She swore she will never do that again.

• She reads and comments on my blog! Her store recently launched a website. I would never have predicted these things a few years ago, when she couldn't get her computer mouse to respond correctly.

• She actually lost weight when she was pregnant with me. She delivered me without my father present (he wasn't allowed in!) and she was terrified. She was mystified by my spirited children, since hers never gave her difficulties with eating, sleeping, extreme fearfulness, resistance to change, and/or great sensitivity to smells and seams in socks -- but she also never made me feel like my mothering was to blame. Thank heavens!
  

• She is fervent in her faith. She is and always has been a good example of a woman who seeks guidance from the Lord. I am realizing more and more how valuable that is to me.

• She is traveling to Denver on her birthday to help care for my grandmother, who recently had knee replacement surgery. No matter how crazy busy her life gets, she still takes time out to help her family.

Happy birthday, Mom!! I love you so.


p.s. It was my sweet Aunt Denise's birthday yesterday (Mom's little sister). When I talked to her on the phone, she told me that she & Grandma were asked to teach a class for Relief Society about grandparenting and enjoying the later years in life. After she picked her jaw up off the floor, she responded that she wouldn't know, since she's not a grandparent yet, nor does she consider age 45 to be the later years in life! If you knew her, you'd never even believe she was 45, she is gorgeous, very entertaining, and looks younger than me for sure.