Happy Birthday and Happy Mothers' Day

Happy Birthday to my grandma! A few days ago she turned 104 years old. She's amazing. She still lives independently on her ranch in Wyoming. She has a good life and I hope to be as healthy as she is when I'm 50.

104 years old is hard to comprehend.  When my Grandma was born (in the same little town where she lives now), Teddy Roosevelt was President and the Ford Model T went on the market.

She shares a birth-year with Jimmy Stewart, Buddy Ebsen, Ian Fleming, Milton Berle, Max Grundig, Helene Boucher and a long list of other long gone famous favorites.

When my grandma was just 4 years old, the Titanic sank. Mother's Day was declared a national holiday, and the Girl Scouts was founded.

She was 12 years old when the 19th amendment passed and women were granted the right to vote. When she was 19 the first talking movie, The Jazz Singer, came out. A year later, Mickey Mouse's first movie "Steamboat Willie" was released.

1930 was the year she got married to my grandpa. Great guy and a lucky man. The rest is history as they say.

Happy Birthday to you, Grandma!

Happy Mothers' Day too!  I am always so busy being a mom that I am not a very good daughter. I have Mother's Day cards sitting here but I didn't get them to the post office. I doubt they will arrive by yesterday if I haven't mailed them yet! My appreciation for my mom and my grandma is not lessened by my lack of postal skills.

My mom is amazing. I remember as a kid that she worked, and she worked a lot, but she was always home with us. Not sure how she managed that, but it is every mama's dream to balance it all and I feel like my mom did but I cannot for the life of me figure out how. After years and years of waiting tables she became a librarian. Now, she's a retired social butterfly.

We were always busy. My mom had more stuff for us to do than any teacher I ever had in school. We had projects and activities all the time. Mom had a special tablecloth; it was a plastic picnic cloth with Raggedy Ann and Andy printed on it. It was also covered in paint, glitter, glue, and all sorts of stains from our fun. You just knew it was going to be a good day when Mom got out the Raggedy Ann tablecloth!

My mom and my grandma are both widows now and they pal around together. They are always busy going places, meeting with friends, visiting, celebrating one thing after another, and planning more fun. We're all pretty excited to go visit again this summer. We'll celebrate birthdays, Mother's Day, and Christmas all at once on a non-holiday. Every day is a good one with my mom and grandma!

Mommy Hat Parade

Happy Mother's Day!

I celebrated with my 5 yr old at her preschool on Friday.  The school had a long program for the moms and it was a lot of fun.

We got a note home saying that the moms had to wear a decorated hat; oh dear, what am I going to do for that?  I had a very busy week and really didn't have much time to think about it. I did look at sun hats at Walmart, but they were so floppy. And $8 for a hat I will wear for an hour. Eh.

I decided to get a piece of posterboard for 99 cents and make my own hat. I'll bet lots of moms will have home made hats.

At midnight on Thursday, I cut the posterboard into a big brim and folded some grocery sack brown paper around for the hat part. Glue and tape and there was the hat structure. I had to cover up the ugly brown grocery sack, so I used the generic leaking diapers that I bought for Charlie. Those diapers were great for cleaning up spills, but not great for diapering Charlie. They leaked like crazy!  I ended up using them as cleaning rags, that's how bad they were.  I had two left, and so I wrapped them around the top part of the hat. Perfect!  I glued on some of Henry's baby shower decorations too.

To the brim, I glued on little photos of all my girls, Charlie and the dog. I even stuck a picture of Kaelyn on it.  The photos looked good.  I decided it wasn't flashy enough, so I glued on a glitter border and tied a fabric scrap around it. Looking better.

It won't stay on my big head. Ugh.  I took inspiration from Mary Poppins and added a tie on sash.  I just used a fabric scrap.  Since I had the tie, I stuck on some baby shoes to the ends to finish it off.  There, the world's corniest Mother's Day hat!

Morning came and Gracie was super excited to see my hat.  She loved it! But she thought it needed more pink and stuck a wad of gift wrap on top. The gift tissue looked pretty good so I added another piece and fluffed it up. I suddenly realized it was huge.  Too late now, we gotta go!

Since it was a special day, I donned a sundress. I never do that!  I put on my white sundress, decided it was just too white.  So I put on a yellow maternity sundress, no, the white one fit better.  Back into the white dress, ok, it'll be fine.

I loaded up the kids and the hat and off we went! First stop, gymnastics.  I met my friend there. She and her little girl were kind enough to accompany Libby during gymnastics class and babysit her for a while afterward so that I could attend the preschool thing.  I was putting Libby's carseat in her car when she said to me, "Did you know that your dress isn't zipped?"

Isn't that the perfect way to dress for a Mothers Day event? In an unzipped dress? How embarrassing! I am so glad I had to drop Libby off first! We all walked into gymnastics together and we were the only ones there.  Leave it to me to go on the wrong day. Wait, it was Friday at 9:30. That should be right. The teacher came in and said we were just too early. Class didn't start for another 5 minutes. Ok, then. Gracie and I left for her school.

First we went to the school chapel where the pastor lead the kids and moms in some children's church songs. Then the teachers read a story and put on a skit to illustrate the story. That was cute and the kids sure enjoyed it. Everyone was excused to the classrooms to make craft projects. We were to go into each classroom and make three or four different things.

Gracie and I made a "Helping Hand Bouquet" and a teapot necklace.  They were both time consuming with the cutting and gluing and beading, so I helped Gracie and felt guilty for helping her since I don't like it when she brings home art projects that the teacher obviously made.

Then it was time for the Mommy Hat Parade.  All of the children went outside and sat down, judges were put in place and the moms lined up.  We were paraded around the playground and told to bend down to allow the seated judges to view the hat and do a dance for the judges.  A dance?  Oh my.  I swooshed my arms up and down. There were some nice hats, most of them hand decorated with photos and flowers and such. I really liked their ideas and wished I had thought of this and that. Some of them looked slapped together and some looked like they spent a week or more on the project.

The judges handed out prizes for Most Creative, Most Outrageous, Promises Top Model, and Silliest. I won Most Outrageous!  I got a laminated award certificate and a Starbucks gift card. Gracie was thrilled to pieces!

After the hat parade and the awards, we were herded indoors for a luncheon. I was starving! The buffet table had quite a spread: chips, little coldcut sandwiches, cold spaghetti salad, jello and cookies. It was awful! Yuck! Thank goodness for the cookies. My friend showed up with her daughter and Libby, so we took this opportunity to leave our picked over lunches and head out.  We had to move the carseat back to my van. Libby and Nora each grabbed a cookie, Gracie grabbed two more and off we went. A successful and very fun Mother's Day morning! 

Mother's Day Questionnaire

My adorable little 5 yr old had to answer questions for her Mother's Day projects.  I have to share!  Her answers show that she knows me well.

My Mommy is a Chef. I love it when she makes "spaghetti".
- yesterday she told me she likes spaghetti but not the noodles, the sauce or the meat. And this is her answer? That made me laugh!

My mommy is a Magician. She can always find lost things. Once she found "a little doll".
- Once?  Child, I've found more little dolls in little hidden places than you can count!

My Mommy is a Princess because she "is nice!
- Oh, thank goodness! I like this answer!  I can't believe her response wasn't "because she treats me like a  servant".

My Mommy is a Chauffeur. She drives me to "the park and to Child's Play."
 - among other places, this is true. Child's Play is an indoor playground.

My Mommy is a Nurse. She makes me feel better when she "puts the tv on for me so I can watch cartoons."
- Cartoons make me feel better too.

My Mommy's eyes are the color "maybe it's brown,maybe".
- nope, my eyes are blue.

My Mommy's hair is the color"brown and black".
- Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for not saying gray!!!

My Mommy is as pretty as " a heart".
- I hope she means that in a Valentine sort of way rather than a medical sort of way.

My Mommy's favorite thing to eat is "salad".
- I do love salad.

When my Mommy grows up, she wants to be a "Just a Mom".
- True. I want to be a mommy forever! And a Grandma!  And an English teacher. I'm still working on that one.

My favorite thing to do with my Mommy is "sit and watch cartoons on the old couch".
- Really? That is your favorite thing? Not going to Disneyland or the zoo or the park or making crafts or any of the other hundreds of things we do? Your favorite thing is vegging out on the old couch? I didn't realize you were so easily entertained.  hmm, this could make my life easier!

I love to make my Mommy laugh by "Saying Oxnard"
- When I read this I nearly fell off my chair because I burst out laughing! It's true! She thinks "Oxnard" is the funniest word ever and she's got the delivery to make it true.

What my Mommy loves most is "Me".
- Yes, You. And your three sisters and your daddy.  And your Grandmas and your nephews.  All of you are what I love the most!

My Mommy is good at so many things, but I think she is best at "Seeing the Easter Bunny."
- What?  Hmm, I didn't realize I was so talented at that. I figured you would respond with "sitting on the old couch".

My Mommy is so smart she even knows how to "Do rhyming games".
- We sure do have lots of fun rhyming while we drive!

My Mommy's favorite thing to do in her extra time is "Go to the Mommy place for Mommies only".
- I do enjoy going out with the other mommies, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it is my favorite thing to do. Far from it! My favorite thing to do is spend my days with you!

I can show my Mommy how much I love her by "saying I love you".
- Awwww! I love you too!

*P.S. I sure wish your preschool teacher knew that the word "Mommy" is not capitalized unless it is at the beginning of a sentence or used as a name. Oy.