Mother's Day

Last Sunday was Mother's Day. We made Hawaiian Haystacks for dinner and had the grand babies and Karen and Ben over. We gave my mom gifts. The best gift was from my fifteen year old brother Andrew. He has been trying to talk my mom into letting him go to "Dance Battle Wednesday" in Provo, where his break dance teacher's crew is performing. Yes, Andrew is into break dancing. He takes lessons from a break dancer in my ward, who was almost in the finals of So You Think You Can Dance last year. Andrew's B-boy name is "Volume." Feel free to call him this instead of Andrew.
Anyway, Andrew has a School Honor's night on Wednesday for getting good grades. He thinks it is stupid that he is being "punished" for getting good grades by having to go to something so boring. My mom wants him to go to honors night and he wants to go to Dance Battle Wednesday instead. It has been a point of discussion. Andrew, I mean Volume, even asked me to "use my influence" to convince mom to let him go to Dance Battle Wednesday. Personally, I think he should go to DBW. So for Mother's Day he gave her this:
It is a chauffer license, enabling her to drive him to Dance Battle Wednesday!!!! Isn't that thoughtful? She was sooooo excited. Can you tell?



This is a picture of Volume and Katie on Mother's Day. If you look close, you will be able to see that he is taller than her now. Also, they look a lot alike, huh?

What you are about to see is a picture of Volume in action. He is actually kind of awesome. He and his friend Carson started taking break dance lessons so that they could do a routine for the EFY talent show. They only have three more weeks until the big day and they are practicing hard. The other day I borrowed Drew's i-pod to go running. I put it on random shuffle, which, I discovered, meant that it randomly went from break dance music to the Book of Mormon audio tracks. That made my heart smile, it sort of epitomized 15 yr old Drew right now.
My sister-in-law, Karen, is going to have a baby in a week. Little Jakey is 22 months old and he LOVES his mommy, and the new baby in her tummy, which he used to point to and call "basketball, shoot it!" She's so tiny everywhere else that her belly does kind of look like a basketball under there, huh? Karen is a fantastic mom, and I think the pictures below say so much about young motherhood:




Jake has a rough and tumble 100% boy personality, and he also has this maternal side that is SO sweet. Karen bought him this boy doll for Christmas and he LOVES it. He carries this baby with him everywhere. He snuggles it up under his arm to ride his bike and do other little boy things.

I'll always remember Julie Beck's talk on "Mother Hearts." Anyone can have a mother heart, even little 1 year old boys. I am so grateful for those who nurture, perceive needs, give unselfishly at inconvenient moments, listen, coach, encourage, inspire, enlighten, sacrifice, and for the person who more than anyone else in the world has taught me what love is - my Mom. I love you more than anything, mommy. You are the best gift I have ever received. Happy Mothers Day!