Happy Mother's Day

This is a picture of me with Zack moments after he was born. It makes me happy every time I see it. Meeting your baby for the first time is one of the absolute sweetest moments of all motherhood.

Mother's Day is, without a doubt, one of my very favorite days of the year. I love the little homemade gifts my children make for me at school. Handprints are very special gifts. For the past several years it seems I always receive some sort of handprint, whether it is a small handprint of one of my children's hands dipped in paint and pressed on a tile, or traced in crayon on a card, or traced and cut out. I love it.

I also loved being invited to the Mother's Day Tea at Andrew's preschool and seeing his face light up as he ran to me yelling, "Mommy! Mommy!" as he made sure all of his friends noticed who I was and who I belonged to. It made me feel very important. He painted a flower pot for me. Maddie has been making me Mother's Day cards all week. She also made a special art project out of wood for me at school. I am not quite sure how to describe it, but is very neat. This morning Zack told me he loved me and gave me a hug and a kiss. Even Mylie has seemed extra cuddly this Mother's Day.

Ben reminded me that he has stowed much of our 'holiday-present-giving' funds into our Disney Trip planned for September, which I am very excited about and greatly looking forward to. Still, he gave me a photo album with 200 pictures of our kids that have been taken over the past 6 or so years which is a treasure to me. He also made breakfast and got the kids dressed for church. He even got me some cheerful flowers, and some treats, which we all know will primarily be eaten by the kids. I think really he only got me a candle, the twizzlers, and some flowers, but decided to throw in some of Maddie's lunch snacks he picked up at the grocery store so that it would look more plentiful when I came to look. He's so resourceful...


My sister, Jessie, sent me a very fun Mother's Day card that I loved. On the outside it said something like, "I wanted to get you something extra special for mother's day" and on the inside it said, "But how can you top growing up with me?" Classic. I enjoyed getting it.

I must admit, that as my kids get older and busier and louder and messier, I recognize now that my mom actually was being serious and honest when she told her kids that all she wanted for Mother's Day was a day where everyone got along, were quiet, and kept the house clean. Oh the simple things in life!

Mother's Day without my Mom is still hard. It is especially hard, now that I am also a mom, and there are so many things I want to ask her advice on or to tell her all about. My mom was such a fabulous mom. We all knew how much she loved us. She would do anything for us. I can remember a time when one of the neighborhood kids had intentionally broken something that Josh had made in the backyard, when he was about five or six years old. We were all in the car, when Josh told us what had happened, and I can remember sinking down in my seat as my mom went honking down the street to find the kid who messed up Josh's "backyard putt-putt" course he had made. She would stand up for her kids and protect them. I can remember her reading the 'Wizard Of Oz' to me each night when I was little. I loved it when she would tell me the ways that I was like her, like we both love reading and writing. My mom was service oriented and very easy to talk to. She made friends where ever she went, and the friends she made she kept. Her funeral in Utah was overflowing with people who loved her, some of whom she had not seen in 20 or so years, but who still felt close to her. Her memorial service in Virginia was the same way. I feel so lucky to have her as my mom. Sometimes I feel guilty that I am not as good of a mom as my mom was, but being more like her is something I strive for. I look for any opportunity that presents itself to talk about my mom with my kids. I want them to know her and to love her. Often I feel angry that she didn't get to spend time with all these little grandchildren of hers, because I know she would have loved it. I will always remember the few months that my mom and Maddie's lives overlapped, where she was able to be grandma and see and spend time with me and Maddie.

On my 23rd birthday, the first birthday after my mom died, I received a special card in the mail. It was from my mom's sister Nancy. It was a card that my mom had sent her for Halloween, when I was one. The entire card was about me, and all the new things I was doing, and how much my mom loved me and loved being a mom. I think it was one of the nicest things I have ever received. It is amazing to me that she had saved this card for 22 years, even though she had moved back and forth several times across the country. Do you know how much it means to hear or read the words from someone you loved who is gone, especially when they are saying that they love you?

There are so many challenging aspects to motherhood, but I love being a mom. I know in my blog I like to vent out some of the craziness that happens, but there are so many times each day when I just smile and laugh because of something one of my kids does. Today, for example, when Maddie and Andrew and Bracken went up to sing Mother's Day songs with the rest of the primary kids in our ward, Andrew found a stool and stood on it so he was very tall in the front. Bracken stood next to him. They were standing by a beautiful arrangement of roses, which they nearly tipped over, until someone grabbed the vase in the nick of time. Bracken and Andrew kept waving and smiling. I'm not sure if either of them ever sang, but they were very sure that Brooke and I were watching them. Bracken did a big grin and bobbed his head along with the tune, while Andrew did some sort of strange dance with his arms and hands. Meanwhile, Zack and Abbie both managed to escape up to the front, even though they are not in primary. They were running all around behind the kids singing, and they were loudly talking to each other. Zack saw Ben coming for him and took off and ran a lap around the entire congregation. Abbie waited for him at the stairs shouting, "Zack! Zack! Come here! Zack!", all the while the other kids are singing. Zack makes it full circle back to Abbie, and they joyfully start running around behind the bishopric and the singing kids. I am holding Mylie and wearing heels, knowing that me chasing them will only make more of a scene. Part of me is mortified, and part of me thinks it is the most hilarious thing I have seen in a long time. Fortunately, our good friend Andrea braved going up after them and they both came quietly down with her.

I love my four, but they give me a run for my money. I am in awe of my Grandma (Durham) Hatch who raised nine children. She always talks about how much she loved having nine kids. She is so loving and good-natured and so much fun. She is very patient, as you would have to be with nine children. I can remember going on gigantic family vacations to places like the beach, where my Grandma would go boogie-boarding with the grandkids, and all of the grandkids old enough to have gone to the family trip to Wolf Creek will remember when Grandma went down the waterslide with us. She has loads of grandkids and great-grandkids and she NEVER forgets a birthday. She has a wonderful testimony, she has served a mission with my grandpa Hatch, and the two of them have been temple workers for years. She is so great to call me, even though she often gets my message machine it seems! It makes me feel very special. I love spending time with her. My kids do too. It meant a lot to me that she flew back to Mylie's blessing last year. I can remember the fun trips to Hogle Zoo with her when I was little, and here is a picture of her with my kids at Hogle Zoo last summer (FYI- she forgot her sunglasses and was borrowing Ben's):


I also love my Grandma Lee. She is the Grandma Lee that my kids remember. She past away suddenly in June, and I miss her so much. She was the one who got me hooked on crosswords. I loved that she always had sharp pencils ready to go, and could solve any crossword she found in a matter of hours (usually faster). She sewed countless Halloween costumes that are now entering circulation among her great-grandchildren. She made us dolls, sweaters, pillows, a toy horse, slippers, baby blankets, afghans, needlepoint christmas stockings, and many other wonderful handmade items, even though she suffered from terrible arthritis. She was such a talented woman. She was an excellent listener and an incredible cook. I have many of her recipes, like the marinade she used for flank steak, that have become staples in my family's life. In college, my friends were always excited when I brought home some of her homemade raspberry jam or dill pickles. These were always made from the raspberries and cucumbers that she and my grandpa grew in their own garden. My grandma Lee also never forgot a birthday. Actually, I don't think she ever forgot anything in her whole life, her memory was amazing. She could recite everyone's birthday, including those of her children-in-law, grandchildren-in-law, and great-grandchildren just off the top of her head. When I was little she would walk on her hands to make us laugh. Who else has a grandma that does that? She was a fabulous grandma who lived for her family, and took pride in every small accomplishment we made. I often save phone messages from my grandparents, and with our phone service, we are able to receive voicemails to our emails and save them. I am so grateful for that, because it allowed me to preserve a very cherished and treasured last phone call from my grandma. It makes me cry everytime I hear it. Although the message is to me, she would have said something similar to it to her other grandchildren as well. She would be so excited for Brooke, and Steven, and Maere, and Emilie who all had new babies or have become pregnant since Grandma died. Erin would have received a call about how fun her wedding was. She would have called Jessie to tell her how thrilled she was that Jessie had found someone she wants to marry and what an accomplishment it was that she graduated from BYU. She would have called Shannon and Nick to tell them how excited she was about their new baby and how proud she was of Nick's hard work finishing law school. She would call Martha to tell her how exciting it is that Martha was accepted to BYU's dance program. She would tell Caleb how sorry she was to hear about the death of his mission president, but also how excited she would be for him to come home. Andy would definitely be hearing about how fun his kids are and how big they are getting. She was close with all of us. For all I know, they have letters and birthday cards and videos and phone calls from grandma also preserved and tucked away, but this is my voicemail:

(By the way, it doesn't open on AOL, so use a different server to hear it)

http://home.comcast.net/~benburtonfamily/Grandma_Lee_03-23-2006.wav

I am also grateful for my wonderful mother-in-law. She has raised six very wonderful children. She has accepted me fully as one of her own, and is always willing to lend a hand when I need it. She is such a fun grandma. My kids all beg to go to her house to play or sleepover. Most recently, when Mylie was born, she was my mom who came and stayed and fixed meals, and watched the older children, and did laundry. She is such a fabulous example of hard work, service, and charity. I tell you, you can't survive as a mother with out those attributes. She is so much fun. I can't tell you how many people who I meet in various wards I have been in, who when they learn where I am from and what my last name is, tell me all sorts of stories about "wonderful Winnie Burton" who was there when they needed her. Many of my friends tell me how they wish they had a mother-in-law like mine.

Another mom that I love and am very proud of is my sister Brooke. She is such a great example of what a mother should be. It is so fun to live only a few doors away from her, so we are able to spend a lot of time together. It is nice to have our kids so close in age, and it was quite the experience during our last pregnancies when our babies were due within 12 days of each other.

I am very lucky to be a mom, and to have the influences and examples of so many incredible mothers in my life. Being a mother is a wonderful thing and it is worth celebrating. Happy Mother's Day to all mothers every where!