Happy Mother's Day

Don't get mad at my family, but I must confess that Mother's Day isn't my favorite day of the year.

I love getting the thoughtful trinkets and homemade gifts from my children, but it is usually just another Sunday. I often get my own gift or card or know what I'm getting. There have been fun surprises sometime, but I always tell my kids I'd rather they treat every day as Mother's Day and not try to cram all the niceness into a day when they are told they HAVE to do things for me.

I had fun this Mother's Day, mostly because of a bit of an attitude change when my sister, Michelle, sent me the talk she had written to give in church Mother's Day Sunday. She said it was ok to share it, so I've posted the beginning of her talk below.

Happy Mother’s Day. When I was a young mother, I would come home from church on Mother’s Day feeling discouraged because I was not perfect like the ones I had heard about that day. I thought I would never become perfect like those mothers. But, now that I’ve been a mom for almost 18 years, I’ve come to realize that I am perfect.

I know this is sounds a little prideful, but, I’m going to tell you some of the ways I am perfect. If you can relate to any of these, then you should feel better about yourself knowing that you are perfect too.

· I have put homemade dinner rolls into the oven that have come out as perfectly hard biscuits.

· I have made dinners that have tasted perfectly disgusting.

· I have sent my kids to church in perfectly wrinkled clothes.

· I have put white shirts into the washer, and they have come out of the dryer looking perfectly pink.

· There have been times that my children have cried in perfect harmony.

· I have taken a pile of merit badges and scout patches and have perfectly stapled them to the boys shirts and sash.

· I have planted healthy plants and flowers, and within 3 days, they are perfectly dead.

· I have also been perfectly mad. When the boys were 4, 2 and 1, I had made them macaroni and cheese for lunch and left to change the laundry. When I came back a few minutes later, there was macaroni all over the kitchen floor, walls, ceiling, oven, refrigerator, and cupboards. That made me upset, so I sent them to their room while I cleaned it up. It took awhile since I had to pick up the sticky macaroni one by one. During that time, I had the chance to calm down. I went to their room to tell them they could come out, but when I opened the door, I saw them laughing and jumping on their toddler beds while throwing cheerios from the diaper bag, all over the room. They had jumped on their beds for so long, that the metal frames had been bent all the way to the floor. That was the moment I was perfectly mad. So, I perfectly slammed the door as I left their room. I can’t remember what happened after that. Which means, my mind is perfectly forgetful.

Isn’t it wonderful to realize how perfect you are, just by changing your perspective.

She went on, using parts of Elder Ballard's talk, "Finding Joy Through Loving Service," and finding the "flecks of gold" in her mothering. It was a wonderful talk and changed my perspective.

After church we went to the botanical gardens that are close by. Robert wanted to show me what they had done - they've been working on expanding the groomed areas and it is very nice.

Natalie was in a bit of a mood, but it was fun to walk around and see what they had. We had only gone down the walking trails through the woods before, never to the area around the visitor's center.

Logan got a hold of the camera and started taking pictures of all the plants - I think he'll be our next Alyssa when it comes to taking nature pictures, they were all very good.

He did also take this one of the rest of us.

I got a short Mother's Day nap before making dinner.