Beaming Mother

Having a perfect daughter you would think that I would be used to hearing great things about her but I tell you, it never gets old.  Today she went above and beyond, again, and made me the proudest mom in the world.  She serves as the ASB secretary so is privy to all the goings on in the student council.  The officers in charge of naming the Athletes of the Week for pep rallies came to her and informed her that she would be getting the second and final Athlete of the Week for being one of the tennis captains.  The first one was going to the other captain.  Both of the captains are seniors and are very good tennis players but our sophomore #1 singles player is in a whole different league from these girls.  She NEVER loses.  She is probably going to end up a tennis pro and my daughter couldn't imagine her not getting an Athlete of the Week award so she told the ASB officers to give it to her instead of taking it herself.  She was sad about not being recognized in front of the school but knew that if you really look at what the award is then she would have to defer to her teammate who is much more skilled.  I was so proud of her for doing this hard thing.  I would have loved to see her get another T-shirt (she got this award last year) and be recognized in front of her peers but her character is the best thing she could wear.  A junior varsity player who is in our ward asked my daughter if she was getting the award with the younger player and when my daughter explained what she had done the JV player told her that she was her hero.  That is a wayyyy better prize than a T-shirt.  She will always be my hero.  I love her so much I can hardly stand it sometimes.  If this award was for the Human Being of the Century she would win it for sure:)

Michelle!

Today is my second daughter-in-law's birthday and the last of the tributes for my girls for this year.  Michelle is a great wife and mother.  She has dedicated her life to taking care of her husband and children and I couldn't be happier about that since her husband is my son and her children are my beloved grandchildren.  She makes dinners every night for her hardworking husband and spends nearly all of her time teaching and loving her children.  She reads the Book of Mormon everyday and strives to live the gospel.  She makes sure that we see pictures of our grandchildren very regularly and makes time to visit us and facetime with us on a regular basis.  In other words, she is a dream come true for a daughter-in-law.  When raising boys it's always hit or miss with who they are going to bring into the family and I have to hand it to my sons, they have picked the cream of the crop and I couldn't be happier with my daughter-in-laws.  Thank you, Michelle, for making my son and his parents very happy people.  I hope you have a wonderful birthday.  You deserve it!  I love you:)

He Has a Porsche!

My dear sweet husband fulfilled a 40 year dream/wish for himself last month.  He bought a Porsche.  I know.  I had a heart attach too until he explained that it was old (1999) and quite a bit cheaper than the reasonably priced car he had just bought me.  After seeing this man with this toy I can honestly say that he could have paid 3 times as much for it and I wouldn't be upset.  Every day is like Christmas for him.  He will come home and say something like "It was one of those days where everything went wrong at work, I got cut off in traffic, etc. but.... I have a Porsche!" and then he grins from ear to ear.  It's now a family joke.  If anyone is having a bad day they say "but Dad/Pat has a Porsche!".  Even the daughters-in-law have caught on.  I literally laughed out loud when Aubrie texted Pat the other day, "I was having a bad day but then I remembered... YOU HAVE A PORSCHE!".  This wonderful man has sacrificed so much to make my life perfect and to give all he has to our children that I can happily and whole heartedly shout to the world, "HE HAS A PORSCHE!",

Beer Bought a Condo!!!!

My eldest son, Brandon, is the first child in the family to buy a house!  He bought a 2 bd. 2 bath condo about 2 miles away from us.  He's so nervous and I'm so excited for him!  I can't wait to go and decorate it.  I can't believe my little baby is a homeowner.  So exciting!

Praise Technology!

I am sooo thankful that I live in an age when technology is so amazing.  I am also sooo thankful that I actually know how to take advantage of a little bit of it!  I can't imagine how incredibly sad I would be if there was no such thing as texting and facebook and facetime.  I also have to give a shoutout to my daughters-in-law and sons for making very good use of these modern day miracles.  I get pictures of my children and grandchildren almost every day and even though none of them live close I can still be a part of their lives and watch their activities from afar.  I LOVE it!!!  Thank you, my dear family, for including me in your lives and remembering to send those beloved pictures and texts to your old ma:)  I love you all!

More Lasts, More Tears

The "lasts" are starting in earnest.  My baby had her senior picture taken and she looked so beautiful that I cried, right in front of the photographer.  Luckily he has taken all 7 of my kids pictures so he knows me well.  He wasn't even surprised.  Right up until the day it happened I thought I was fine, even relieved to not have to make this appointment again or go down and take care of this but when it actually came it dawned on me that I will never do this again and it made me a little sad.  On the same day I filled out my 91st (and last) emergency card for the school and I cried again but this time they were tears of joy!  Every single year I have had to fill out the same information over and over again even though nothing has changed and I truly will not miss doing that ever again.  O.K.  I did pause for a moment right after doing it and have a little bit of melancholy and nostalgia thinking of the days when I would fill out 5 or 6 at a time but overall that is one chore that I won't miss. It dawned on me that people with only one or two kids might not have as hard a time saying goodbye to this way of life because they never really had time to get into it but after 27 years of doing this stuff every year it really becomes part of who you are and saying goodbye is a little tough.Stay tuned for more "lasts", (and quite a few more tears:) )

Reflections

The mind is an amazing thing.  It can hold so much.  I found an old record on iTunes that I hadn't heard since I was in college so I bought it and have been listening to it on my walks the past couple of days.  Just hearing the tunes and the words transported me back to a time long before any of my current life.  It got me thinking about what has happened since that time and where I am now.  Also, this is the first summer without any of my crazy boys.  The only ones left in our home are the quiet, subdued, solitary people.  In looking around my home and yard I have found pockets of loneliness.  I see places that used to be filled with loud, crazy, happy people.  I see things I have collected to accommodate all of these people.  I could never get enough chairs and tables for my yard and now nobody sits on these chairs or at these tables.  I am ready to give them away to my children who have moved away.  They have no value to me anymore.  It's the same with the swing that faces the basketball court where I watched those balls go through that hoop a billion times.  It's so quiet now.  I have been known to collect couches.  Yes, you read that right, couches.  I have tons of them.  There were always multiple groups in my house and they all needed to have places to congregate.  There were the ones who just wanted to talk, the ones who played games and the ones who watched movies or games on T.V.  They all had to have a couch.  Now I have many empty couches waiting to go to children who need them in their little starter homes.  I have gotten used to the quiet and usually relish the peace and tranquility of my home with just my oldest and youngest living there.  I enjoy having the time to talk to each of them and give them my undivided attention.  I can see, sometimes, why people only have 1 or 2 children.  It's kind of fun to be able to fit into one car and to be able to do things spontaneously because you only have a couple of schedules to work around.  It's kind of weird though to see rooms in my house that used to be filled to overflowing with people now being reassigned to being the man cave or the sitting room or having a bathroom that only guests use because everybody else has their own.  I have children who will soon be making their own homes so I find myself looking around at all of the things I have collected and thinking of who would need what most.  I don't mind giving it all to them because I bought it all for them in the first place.  Without them, I don't really need it.  It reminded me of the plan of salvation and the progression between one life and the next.  In the pre existence I'm sure we didn't need "things" at all.  While on this earth we spend our time gathering things and making memories and then when we leave this earth we have no use for things anymore.  All we take with us to the next life are the memories and the knowledge we have gathered.  Even though I have quite a bit of time left on this earth I can feel myself slowly tagging the material items I have gathered into groups for that big garage sale of my life.  I will gradually give most everything I have to my children so that they can start the cycle with their families.  There really is a "circle of life". The End.