A Day for Mother's

Mother's Day. A day to celebrate the women who have influenced my life. There have been many. And to them all I say thank you! Especially to my own mother, and my grandmothers.

During dinner we reminisced about our memories of our mother's.

Mom told me how when she was young, she entered Little Miss Dairy, a pageant of some sort, and her mother bought her a store bought dress for the competition. It was her first store bought dress! Grandma also loved to sing, and was in a singing group. She is also very good at shorthand. She was a secretary for quite awhile, and grandma is the one who recorded our blessings all in shorthand - what a blessing for us to have! Cami and I had recollections from living with grandma at college. I remember sitting in the computer room with grandma just helping her with genealogy or typing things she had written on the computer, and just talking. She is the first one who got me interested in doing genealogy work and I love it! I remember all the wonderful meals grandma would cook. I remember when we were younger always coming to grandma's house for conference and grandma taught us how to crochet, and we would crochet these long strands of yarn as we tried to listen to conference. Cami recounted how she loves the show "The Biggest Loser", and would always watch it. One night she came home late on the night it showed, so she hadn't been able to watch it. Grandma animatedly told Cami, "Bernie got eliminated!" Cami didn't quite understand what Grandma was talking about, and Grandma just kept telling her that it was Bernie who was eliminated. She said, "You know, the Biggest Person show, you know the Loser's show!" Cami got a good laugh out of it.

Dad recalled when he was young driving in the car and singing hymns and country songs with his mother - especially You Are My Sunshine. He also remembered shopping for clothes at JC Penney together for school and riding on the back of a motorcycle with her to see Lou and Jim, some friends of the family. Grandma always liked having nice things, and taking great care of the things that she had. She was always fashionable and in style. She always liked to get slacks and dress shirts for my dad, so he was always nicely dressed as he went to school. Dad went together with Grandma to a 6 week course on conducting music, and he filled in at sacrament meeting a couple times for her at 12 years old. He always thought that was kind of cool that she let him do that. Grandma has been a chorister many times throughout her life! I remember always going to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving and her "special room" full of collectibles that I loved to look at - dolls, and spoons, and books and such. She always prepared a huge dinner for us - delicious! I also remember Grandma always singing The Wind Beneath My Wings. To this day, whenever that song is played I think of my grandmother. After telling that story, dad has been humming the song for the rest of the day. I recall shopping at Costco's with Grandma, and her phrase, "well you can't afford not to buy it" for all the bulk items that her and Grandpa couldn't possibly use up! I loved listening to her play her guitar! I was especially thankful to spend a couple weeks with her recently, watching her read over church books and share info with me, and going to the Emma movie, and lunch, and having the opportunity to talk with her about challenges she had when she was younger.

Some memories I have of my mother include running errands with her and going on walks. When I was younger she would always make me an Easter dress, that I remember loving! I remember once walking into Harmons with her, and I always loved to clog when I was standing in lines for things. She would always kind of laugh at me for that. This particular day, there were big posters hanging up with pictures of the store workers. One said "Head Checker". We had recently had lice in our school and many children had had to have their heads checked and I think they had showed us how to do it, or maybe we had just practiced on each other. I innocently asked, "What does she do, check everyone's head for lice?" I remember my mother just laughing and laughing over that. And I was puzzled, until she clarified for me what a head checker really did. One year for April fools, mom decided to get all of us kids together and yell "fire, fire" while my dad was in the shower. We all had a good laugh as dad came running swiftly out in a bath towel, to help with the fire. I also remember one night coming home for dinner and my mother had made us a meal with ricotta cheese. She was thrilled for some reason, and kept saying over and over throughout the meal, "Did you know this was made with ricotta cheese?" We had a good laugh over it all. Cami remembers driving with mom to the cabin, and mom started yelling, "A moose, a moose". Everyone else in the car was unimpressed. Seeing as what mother was looking at was really a large metal cutout of a moose. With her keen eye sight she had failed to realize it wasn't real, while the rest of us were quite aware of it. But she was so excited! My favorite story of my mother is when she was young, it was her birthday, and grandma had made her a wonderful, delicious cake. When dinner came, mother was nowhere to be found. They looked everywhere and still couldn't find her. Seeing as she was quite young, and they had a canal running close to the property, they were quite alarmed, and worried she could have fallen in and drowned. Eventually, after a lengthy search, she was discovered. She was found underneath her bed fast asleep, with her birthday cake, partially eaten. I love that story! I also love that my mother is extremely giving and considerate of others. She is one of the few in my ward I know of that tries to attend every wedding shower, baby shower, reception - you name it, she tries to be there. She's very reliable and always volunteering herself and others :) to help with the cause!

Mom, Grandma's, thank you for your examples! I love you! Thanks for your love and legacy that I can learn and grow from. I hope your day is a wonderful one!