Raindrops on Roses...

Being Mother's Day, I thought I'd share a few of my favorite things of late. (Thank you to whomever I ripped this idea off of...):

1. The Bonds that Make Us Free: a truer (non-scriptural) book has never been written. This should be required reading for everyone, more than once.

2. Kensington Simca: pardon a little advertising for my favorite local mechanic. These guys have not let us down yet. My dad would say that everyone lies. (Or was that House?) Still, I've been so happy to have been treated kindly, and had the work done on our car well without having to give up any limbs. Love you guys, Emery!

3. Family Search (new): All I can say is that I'm so glad the genealogy bug hit me when the new Fam Search came out. I don't know how I woulda squeezed in weekly visits to family history libraries. It's WONDERFUL to do so much from my own computer.

4. My new sewing machine: a mid-grade Singer that has proven it's worth on the 10 bonnets (so far) that's I've made for my girls and cousins. I've even risked letting the oldest play with it and it's been smooth enough and simple enough to use that she hasn't broken it yet... (Knock on wood.)

5. Making forts: it's rained for like a month straight. And that's hardly an exaggeration. So when Dh made the best fort ever on Weds, the girls decided to sleep in it Friday night. Of course, Shrimp was the only one that was tired enought to actually fall asleep, and then Daddy HAD to sleep out with her in case she woke up alone and was scared... (If you recall, Shrimp is desperately in love w/Daddy and has been a generous loser to Daddy's wife, aka, me.)

6. Periwinkles: their blossoms are almost done for the time being, but there's little that cheers me so much as those purple-blue flowers among the dark green leaves. Even if they are trying to take over the lawn.

7. Nieces doing Chicken Dances: for a superb laugh, check out this music video made my talented brother (in-law). Note said niece doing the chicken dance that we were shown last summer. Almost as good as the "fish on the hook" from Hannah Montana, and the endless ballet poses in every family pic in 2005-7... Not to exclude the funny antics of other nephews and niece in said video... :)

8. Young Children Routinely Slaughtering Common English Words: Why do the older girls have to correct the younger ones all the time? I love that Shrimp says "blutterfly" and tells her daddy his "hansen" (handsome). Or Mini-Me asking for more "Moo-k", preferably Barbie & the Diamond Castle or Les Mis... Even Domba's ever-present request for more Cimanin Toast Crunch at breakfast tickles my funny bone.

9. Cross Country Kids: we are in charge of our elementary school running club again this year, with more kids than ever. What gets me is seeing these kids in hot sun or rain going around and around, trying for just one more lap with just a little encouragement. I'd like to see an adult run the 1-2 miles twice a week for 6 weeks... Would you? Okay, maybe if you could earn the cool little charms the kids get, but still. It really makes my heart swell with motherly love to see these kids working so hard and trying to meet their goals! Love to Rick Dekeon for such a wonderful model to build from!

10. Off-spring singing on Mother's Day: seriously, I love the singing in Sacrament meeting best of all the Mother's Day gifts we get every year. (Though I must say having no meetings for either parent is also a BIG perk.) The girls know that, and this morning, they greeted me with Bub playing the harp and the three of them standing shoulder to shoulder singing "Mother I Love You", my fave Mother's Day Primary song. Of course, we forgot to video it, so we had to do it again (darn!) later. Sorry, I'm too much of a procrastinator to put it up, and you probably woulndn't care anyway... :)

Bonus: little 2-year-old's crawling in from a rudely-interupted nap to fall back asleep snuggling w/Mama...