To All The Moms In My Life

My mom and dad's 50th wedding party. Mom's the one trying to hide on the side, always letting someone else have the spotlight.

My mom is the most incredible lady I know. She has taught me so much and I have so many great memories of growing up in her home.

-- She can out yard-work & garden anyone out there. Some of my earliest memories are of my mom at the top of our crab-apple tree, doing the fall pruning. She mowed the lawn every week and kept that yard looking emaculate, pretty much by herself because of my dad's work and church assignment schedule.

-- You can literally eat off of any surface in my mom's house. The toaster oven she's had for 4 years looks like it's never been used, really. While most people spend months preparing their house to sell, it would take mom about 5 minutes, long enough to put up the sign in the front yard.

-- No one knows half of the service my mom does for everyone around her. She doesn't talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, she lives it.

-- My mom's favorite recipes: brownies, spaghetti sauce, homemade pizza and stuffing at Thanksgiving! When I was living in Israel, she made me a batch of brownies, froze them and mailed them to me. I was in heaven!

-- Because I'm 10 years younger than my next sibling, she did many things twice. I will always be grateful for my own dog, birthday parties, swimming, dance and piano lessons, mommy/daughter dates and disneyland trips, all when she should have been cruising into the teenage years and looking forward to an empty nest!

-- One of my funniest memories of my mom is when my oldest brother was playing around with her and put her on top of our fridge. And left her there, by the way. I don't think I've ever heard her squeal like that!

-- Mom is an amazing artist, although no one has seen her work without prying it out of her. Her handwriting is perfect and every poster she's ever made or scrapbook page she's ever done is lined and mapped out with mathematic precision.

-- Mom really dislikes mother's day! She always conveniently tries to go to St. George on Mother's Day weekend. With all the wonderful things she does, she always thinks she should, or should have, done more.

Mom's surgery last week went extremely well and her doctor's say they've removed all of the cancer. She's working on recovering and will them do a month of radiation treatments, but should be all done after that. We're all so grateful for a quick diagnosis and skilled doctors who helped all of us over this bump in the road.

Mom and Dad posing by the lake during a family trip to Canada. We should have had them face away from the sun, in retrospect.

My Mom H. is the other most amazing lady I know. We all think she must have 36 hours in a day for all the things she seems to get done.

-- Any event is a reason for a celebration! Only our Mom could turn her table settings into a blog post! Preserve your memories because soon your children will be grown and you won't remember what they looked like on their first Christmas morning. Parties with Mom are like nothing you've seen.

-- Life is an adventure. Embrace it! Most people would be scared stiff to live in a foreign country. Within months this lady knows her way around better than veteran tour guides!

-- Never pay retail.

-- Although she's not a professional writer like our sisters, I think they get a lot of their writing talent from her. She is very eloquent in her writing and it's a joy to read about her travels.

-- She's contstantly trying new things and stretching and improving in everything she does.

-- Her children and grandchildren absolutely adore her. Anyone who can inspire this kind of love from those around her must be doing something right!

I'm so blessed to have such amazing moms in my life. I hope my kids have half the mom my hubby and I did.

We love you!