Big Boots & Little Bare Feet: A Mother's Day Catch-Up Post

I just love these two little faces!

Today was Mother's Day here in America, and my guys did a fantastic job making it a terrific weekend.

But let me back up, because I'm due for a catch up.

One of the best factors of being involved in a moms ministry is the access to ideas and information that are perfectly relevant to my current life stage. My church's MOMS Connection group has a FB page that provides an easy forum for posting articles, asking for help/advice, and even funny motherhood jokes. A few weeks ago, someone posted this article. As soon as I saw the title and the first photo, I knew it would be perfect for us. "Words of Affirmation" is my primary love language, so N has always done his best to write me cards and letters.

On the other hand, pretty cards are overpriced and I have a little bit of an obsession with beautiful journals. Anyway, I texted the link to N and then sort of forgot about it, because my memory is good like that these days.

Unbelievably, this past Thursday was our last MOMS meeting for the year, and as per tradition, it was our "Tea & Testimony" gathering. Our mentor moms decorate the tables beautifully and provide a lovely brunch.

We get to dress up, wear hats, and a speaker shares her faith journey. It is, hands down, one of my favorite meetings of the year, although it's bittersweet, because it's also the last meeting of the year.

The beautiful women at my table this year. We missed Kara, Danelle, and Rachael!

This year's speaker was my beautiful friend Rachael, and although I won't go into her story (since it's not mine to share), I'll just say that she was incredibly brave to share it with over a hundred women.

B worked hard on his thank you gifts for his teachers at MOMS. He picked out the paint and ribbons himself.

Our wonderful mentor moms praying before "Tea & Testimony"

So for Mother's Day weekend, I had requested some alone time for Saturday morning. N said that would be perfect, because he and B had Mother's Day things to do. I ran a couple errands and then went to Barnes & Noble to putter around. It has been over two years since I've taken my time perusing through a bookstore, and since I had the baby with me, I was in no rush.

As I was heading to the coffee shop so I could feed A, I heard a familiar laugh. I looked up to see my little boy running up to me, exclaiming in surprise, "Oh, HIIIII, Mommy!" and my poor husband, who was not at all expecting me to be there.

With a wink and a smile, I quickly headed to the far corner of the coffee shop so I wouldn't be able to see what they were up to.

That afternoon, there was lots of secretive doings going on in the garage, and at one point, N said he needed to "borrow" the baby for a little while. There was one slip-up about something involving painting from B, but otherwise, I had no idea what was going on out there. For all I knew, they were building me a bird feeder!

I went out to meet a few friends for dessert last night. When I got home (with a surprise dessert for my sweet husband, who had fed the children and put them to bed), I headed to bed quickly, fully expecting my husband to join me. But N said he still had things to do.

This morning, when I came out of A's room from her early morning feeding, I was handed a fresh cup of coffee by my husband. For breakfast, there were the Pioneer Woman's homemade waffles, topped with a fruit sauce that he had made the night before.

And it wasn't long before my excited little boy brought over two packages for me to open. From the label on the smaller package, I had a suspicion of what it was. I had thought it would be years before I could have one of these, because they are pricey, and, let's face it, raising a family on one income is HARD.

When I opened it, it was even more beautiful than I had expected, especially because I know N thought long and hard about getting it.

As much as I love my new necklace, it was the bigger package that completely floored me. You see, I really had forgotten about the whole Mother's Day journal thing. Also, I'm pretty particular about journals. I like them beautiful but not overly girly. And I prefer them to be unlined.

Well, not only had N remembered and gotten me a journal, he had personalized it.

I later found out that he had spent copious amounts of time on Pinterest researching ideas for utilizing our children's footprints. He had also been on calligraphy sites so he could get my initials just right.

You guys.

I seriously think I fell a little bit more in love with my husband this weekend.

Anyway, the rest of the day was great. Church was incredible. Jeff has been going through our church's "DNA Statements," and today's was "This is not our party." Essentially, he talked about how we have the privilege of being the servants at the King's dinner party, and we get to invite as many people as we can to come. He talked about giving up our preferences for the sake of others and neatly tied that into Mother's Day.

I also have to mention here that we are kind of huge fans of our worship pastor. Tyrone is like no other worship leader either of us have ever known, and I've known a few pretty amazing ones. He is also the main reason we went back after visiting our church for the first time last February.

(Speaking of which, I just have to take a second and plug our worship team's first album. We went to the celebration CD release concert last Sunday and it was amazing. You can listen to a few of the songs here, and if you want to, you can buy the entire album on iTunes. Trust me. You'll love it)

After church, we went to to the hardware store so N and B could look at man stuff while I pushed A around the garden center looking at pretty flowers.

I finally found the lemon grass and Indian firewheel that I've been looking for (but still no mango calla lilies). We spent a good portion of the afternoon outside, working in the backyard, and I am so delighted with all the new pretty things growing back there. The baby robins that we've been watching for the past few weeks have taken flight, and we miss them. We also miss Papa Robin's incessant scolding every time we're out there now. We had gotten very accustomed to their company.