Not Taking This Mother's Day for Granted

This Mother's Day, so full of sweetness with my five children gathered around my table and tucked in under my roof tonight and my own mother joining us for lunch and sleeping just down the hill from us--I am NOT taking for granted.  I want to notice...and appreciate...and savor...and say "thank you" for each of the things that made this particular Sunday in May so special.

Things like...
~ Jeff frying bacon for the family for breakfast before church...and making BLT sandwiches (actually, BLOT-bacon, lettuce, onion, tomato) ;-) for those of us who like such things (that would be Jeff, me, and Tobin, who will usually say very heartily, "Thank you for making me a sandwich!")

~ having all 9 of us together to eat a yummy lunch of BBQ chicken (Virginia-style, which apparently is different from any other BBQ chicken on the planet) which Jeff bought from a customer yesterday (whose church did the chicken as a fundraiser, I think), peaches ("fresh" from the freezer), chocolate cake, and a new kind of grilled cheese sandwich which I thought was scrumptious

 (Italian bread, whole milk mozzarella cheese, fresh tomatoes, fresh basil)

 (with those ingredients, how could it not be good??)  ;-)

~ being given a sweet Mother's Day card--a rather LARGE one, at that  ;-)

~ taking pictures with my mother and my daughter, the two women I love most on earth

 (wearing a new dress was nice, too)  :)

 (a tip of the hat to my sister Donna for giving Mother a corsage for Mother's Day...she loved it!!)  :)

 (Jeff said recently that Moriah is a spittin' image of me...that made me smile a big ol' grin)  :)

~ taking pictures with all five of my children

(since it was my special day, I thought, "It's not too much to ask to get ONE nice, normal picture with all my kids, right?")

(apparently, it was...)

(...too much to ask)  ;-)

(David decided to kiss Moriah...)

(...and I know each of the pictures in this series is almost the same...)

 (...but watch Moriah's facial expressions and body language)

 (it appears she wasn't exactly interested in being kissed at that moment)  ;-)

(sometimes, you just have to laugh)  ;-)

~ being entertained by this mountain-man-turned-country-bumpkin

(no need to wonder where David gets his dramatic facial expressions!)  ;-)

~ taking time this afternoon to sit on the couch and read the book A Love Like No Other, compiled by Elisa Morgan

~ falling asleep on the couch soon after finishing that book  ;-)

Before I end this post and close my eyes on this Mother's Day, let me share two quotes I especially enjoyed today.

A mother is the only person on earth who can divide her love among all her children and each child still have all her love.

~ author unknown,

quoted in A Love Like No Other, compiled by Elisa Morgan

Not too long ago, my daughter, then four years old, ran up to me and said, "Mommy, I love you more than I can."  It brought tears to my eyes because that's exactly how I feel about her.

~ Pam Svoboda,

quoted in A Love Like No Other, compiled by Elisa Morgan