My 6th Mother's Day

In case you haven't looked at social media over the weekend, yesterday was Mother's Day.  It seems like just yesterday that I was enjoying my first one.  I looked back in my files for pictures from that day in 2012 and found these nice photos. 

Glad I put on such a nice outfit for the occasion!  Actually, based on the other pictures in the file it looked like we were planting flowers and our garden that weekend so I probably did wear sweatpants and an old shirt of my brother's. 

This year was fine.  We didn't do anything special.  We were at the farm and yesterday everyone just worked.  My parents' friends from when they were in their 20's were stopping by on a cross country motor home trip and they hadn't seen each other in 30 years so that was crazy.  Me and my sister actually stayed at their house when my mom went in to labor unexpectedly early when my brother was born.  Otherwise it was uneventful.  From my youth I remember Mother's Day being focused around church and having a Sunday School performance where we all fanned out with carnations at the end to give to our moms.  If you had siblings you could give yours to another woman who's kids weren't there aka an old lady.  My mom and grandma were usually there but the little kids always went first so my brother and sister got to them first so my flower always went to an old lady.  After church there was usually some kind of family gathering with one or the other side of the family where my mom spent the day cooking and cleaning. 

Here is my card from the family:

Now this is my kind of card!

I will love this one forever because of Ben's writing in it.  Justin helped his spell the words.  No, he doesn't know the correct variation of Allan/Allen/Alan that we chose for Allan.  He has started being able to sound out words so I've been reading from beginning reader books with him and I must say I'm glad I'm not a reading teacher.  I know my way around the English language but explaining some of this phonics stuff even confuses me.  You forget that at one time some one told you that adding an "e" at the end of a word changes the vowel sound. 

There were a few dandelions growing on the lawn so I tried to teach the kids how to make chains.  I remember a friend teaching me this skill in elementary school.  Some kids just brought their teachers limp dandelions clenched in their fists...we brought them a whole damn rope! 

Ben caught on pretty quick but then they tried to use them as you would actually use a rope and they kept breaking.  No, you can't tow a Tonka truck around with a dandelion rope!  Ben looks pretty dirty here and as the day went on (he spent a lot of time "farming" and riding around on my dad's ranger ATV) he ended up so dirty that I thought he had a tan but it was just a full body layer. 

Stay tuned for my next post...the irises behind the house appear to be blooming any second and they are huge.  Since last summer it seems they have doubled in size.