May 8

Happy Mother's Day! 

As Chris and I planned this day, I told him that I really wanted to sleep in this morning and be woken with coffee and snuggles in bed. My husband delivered, and the girls and I even snapped some selfies of our snuggle session:

Nice faces.

Silly faces.

The kids all brought their Mother's Day books in to me, and showed me their pictures and artwork. Then we got dressed and met my mom and Emily and her two youngest for brunch at the Garden. We had to wait quite a while for brunch, but we found plenty of things to do to keep busy.

Like taking pictures. 

I was so happy that Mom let me take some pictures of her with her grandbabies! 

Is it just me, or does Caleb look like he's thirteen years old?

Mom tried to take a picture of me with my kids. It didn't go well. 

But really, this is a pretty fair representation of what life is like with four kids. It is hectic and messy and usually half of them are happy and I am frazzled at any given time

I love Emily's boys so much. It was disappointing that Ryan couldn't come with us!

Grandma showed the kids the fish pond. No one fell in.

Finally, our table was ready for brunch. It was perfect timing, because Eli was losing it. 

Luckily, mama has the magic cure. I nursed him to sleep, and then all was right in the world. Daisy snapped this picture of Eli's sweet little curls, and I just love it.

Even better, Eli miraculously allowed me to set him down in the stroller! He stayed asleep the whole time I ate my brunch. It was perfect.

Sleep, sweet baby!

While he snoozed, I snapped some portraits of the kiddos for Mom. 

Max, who will be six in August.

Jace, who will be three in July.

Lily, who will also be three in July. (She and Jace were born three days apart! She came two weeks late and he came two weeks early.)

Daisy, who just turned five.

Caleb, who will be fourteen six in July.

I was pretty happy with how the pictures turned out! I also got this one of Daisy:

I know. The curls, the eyelashes, the personality. That girl is something!

And here's Grandma, in a field of flowers with her grandbabies.

All the grandbabies on sheep! Isn't this fun?

Also, do you remember a few weeks ago, when I mentioned that we took some pictures for Mom? Now that she's seen them, I can share them here.

Emily, Billy, and most of their family. Ryan wasn't feeling well, and wasn't able to come take pictures with us.

Emily and Billy.

The grandbabies! After seeing this, Mom referred to them as her "pastel bouquet of grandchildren". I like it!

These little monkeys were hard to corral!

Group shot, courtesy of my remote control. After we left, I was so disappointed when I realized that I completely forgot to take a picture of just my family!

Because I knew Mom would be disappointed that Ryan wasn't in the pictures, I put together this crudely Photoshopped composite image. If you squint your eyes, it's almost believable!

Doesn't Jenny look lovely? She had no idea what we were wearing, and just happened to choose a jacket that perfectly matched all of the little ones' outfits. It was miraculous!

I am telling you, these are mischievous little imps!

Mom liked this one because it looks like Eli is escaping.

And then Chris helped me take this one of the three sisters. 

In August, we will be 36, 35, and 34 years old. I have no idea how Mom survived birthing and raising three girls so close together in age. It took becoming a mother myself to fully understand just how hard it is, and now I appreciate her even more.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! I love you!