A Mother's Day Tribute

"All that I am, or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." ~Abraham Lincoln

Thirty three years ago my young, beautiful mother posed spontaneously for a Montana Standard photographer. I was on her hip. It appeared the next day on the front page as a Mother's Day feature photo. I've never given the photo, that lay tucked away in my baby book, much thought.

Now that I'm a mom, it takes on a whole new meaning. It's a special photo because it represents a bond that mother and child have, but especially mother and daughter, which started for us, I'm sure, the day I was born. It's not possible to appreciate and cherish that bond until one becomes a mother themselves.

I've reflected a lot on this photo, realizing that being a mother is possibly the greatest gift God gave to woman. It's easy to take for granted at times, those little people that we love so much, and cause us gray hair, and sleepless nights. But I try hard not to take this very important role for granted.
I love my mom, I love being a mom, and I'm thrilled there is a day to honor the loveliness of mothers.

To each and every woman that reads this, take a moment to reflect on the loveliness of your mother, and your mother's mother, and yourself, if you're a mother.

CHEERS!

1977, my mother and me. 2010, my son and me.

Budding Artist

I found my box of art supplies. It had been buried in the garage for over 2 years. I was going to throw my old watercolor paints away and start fresh, then decided to let Kaleb use them for art projects. It gave me great pleasure to give him his very first watercolor lesson.
I started taking lessons when I was 9. A local artist held a watercolor workshop for kids and my mom enrolled me. I loved it so much my mom decided to get me into private lessons. I'm pretty sure this is what eventually caused me to give up my love of volleyball, and my scholarship at Montana Tech, and enroll at Western to study art.
It's such a wonderful thing to know how to do, and though I haven't picked up a paintbrush seriously for many, many years (8 to be exact), I have many desires to do so. Someday when I'm short on distractions and heavy on time I will pursue it once again. And when I do, it's going to feel so good.

PAINT
WATER
BRUSH
ARTIST
SALT
SPRINKLING THE SALT
PAINTING
A MASTERPIECE

Hodge Podge

There's too many pictures, too much fun to keep up with around here lately! And I haven't been very good at updating the blog so now I'm a little behind. I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures and write captions. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words anyway, right?

May 2nd: The princess and the doctor.
At Great-grandpa John's 75th birthday. Madeline and Kaleb get ready to blow out the candles.

May 1st: My new double stroller.Come on mom, let's go! It didn't matter to them that they still had PJ's on.

Double the fun at the May Day Festival downtown Dillon. It was chilly but having the stroller for both boys was a life saver. They could both get under the blankies!



April 30th: On the job site with daddy - in his snowsuit

April 27th: Trying to get a good picture to send out with Mother's Day cards. It was not happening this day.

April 21st: THE CURL. It happened on accident one day after bath. It's so cute I can't help but put the curl in his hair everyday.

April 18th: Fishing at the Kid's Pond. The bobber went under and Kaleb starting reeling. I'm sure the adrenaline was running through his veins. He was so excited.

But once it got to shore and started flipping around, excitement turned to hesitancy and he wasn't so sure he wanted that fish after all - as you can see by his body language.
Jaxon loved being out and about at the fishing pond too. After the traumatic fish experience the poles were retired and we threw rocks in for hours (probably not that long but Kaleb could have done it for hours.) We let Jaxon sit on the rocky shore and he too was fascinated with the rocks, which then went directly to the mouth.