Mother's Day

Long ago I learned that if I truly wanted a good picture of my children, I needed to take them to a professional.  As much as I love taking pictures, my children won't pose for me, and getting them to look at the camera all at the same time counts as a victory.

But for Mother's day I still tried.

 It was one of those, "Let's just take some pictures real quick!" that turned into, tears, trying to trim bangs, calling the neighbor to rescue me after I'd butchers the bangs, more tears, and ultimately defeat.

 On top of it all I've been meaning to make Quinn's blessing dress!  The plan is to use my Mom's wedding dress, But Alex LOVES playing in so much, I can't take the scissors to it!  With each day that passes it gets harder and harder.  My one consolation is that there is so much fabric, I can still make the dress and then alter the original for dress up perhaps.

 So while I was thinking of that, I figured I'd try to get a picture of all the girls with the dress before I potentially destroyed it.

 Heidi wasn't having it.  She wouldn't wear it, she wouldn't lay on it, or sit on it or look at it.  This was our compromise.

 But even when she's grumpy- this girl has beautiful eyes.

 I'm trying hard not to make all these posts "Tyler is the most amazing man in the world" posts, but he is, and they are.  He can get Quinn to burp and quiet down when I have failed.  He can get the kids in bed and asleep with smiles still on their faces, and he constantly blows me away with his general awesomeness.

This is how Heidi spent the afternoon riding her bike.  At one point she was also wearing Tyler's clear work glasses.  It was awesome.

 Saturday Tyler woke up, took Alex to get her Kindergarten physical, ran some errands, came home and cleaned the carpet, watched ALL the girls so I could go clothes shopping (necessary, but not fun when you are in that lovely 'inbetween' sizes part of post pregnancy where you just can't wear your winter maternity clothes anymore, but don't fit into your normal size summer clothes.)  While I was gone he took the girls on a bike ride and got Alex so confident in her balancing abilities that when we all got home, we put her pedals back on her bike and she rode!!!!

 This was huge.  A week ago she bawled the entire family walk around the block because she was so afraid of tipping over with her training wheels ON!  So we took the pedals and the training wheels off and let her spend the week learning how to balance!  Well it worked!  We put the pedals back on and with no help or instruction she just got on and rode!!!

 She told and showed the neighbors, and called 3 or 4 people on the phone to brag, it was the greatest Mother's day gift ever to see the confidence and pride shine out of that little face.  It's amazing.  I don't know if it was because of the confidence boost, but on Sunday she went up and sang with the primary kids for Mother's day (our first successful time without tears ever!!!) and then she said the opening prayer in Primary!!!  This has been a year and a half in the making, another huge victory for Alex and our whole family.

Before I had kids, when I saw mother's who had dressed their girls identically, I would roll my eyes.  But now I take every opportunity to make them match, and I'm sure we get lots of eye rolls. But whatever, I LOVE IT!

 As if that wasn't all enough, Tyler pampered me the whole day.  Breakfast in bed, Quinn slept 8 hours and then went back to sleep! The older kids all slept in until 9, so I got quality time with Tyler, prepared my lesson for church AND got to do my hair and get ready for Sunday without kids underfoot!  The girls LET me do their hair with no whining and ALL wore the dresses I'd picked out for them.  Sacrament was great, the talks were wonderful and the kids (except Quinn) behaved.  Then someone pulled the fire alarm, so that was eventful.
  After church the kids colored me pictures and Tyler made special jello jigglers for us.  We all played together and Kara and Devin came over and helped pull off a FANTASTIC dinner and desert!  Then Devin let the girls abuse him for a few hours, and there was sitting and chatting and somehow Tyler even got Alex to apologies after throwing a fit!  She came upstairs and said with a smile on her face, "Mommy, I was frustrated, I'm sorry for overreacting."  I was blown away.
    So I'm pretty sure that this Mother's Day will never be topped.  It was pretty much perfect from start to finish, as was the entire weekend actually, again.
    So happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful women out there that 'mothered' me and my children.  Especially you Grandma's and Aunts that shower my girls with your love.  Thanks for the great examples you are, for the advice, love and compassion.  We couldn't do it without you!