Happy Mother's Day!

I thought it might be a nice way to start this year's Mother's Day post with a couple of pictures from last year. These were taken during our visit to Ohio in February 2009. Rachel was about 10 1/2 months old here. Mom and Dad had invited a bunch of family members over to see us since we were home and it was a lot of fun visiting with everyone. There was a lot going on and I was trying to take pictures of everyone with Rachel. I am so grateful someone said we needed a "generations" picture! I had not thought of that and love it.

"If I could give you one gift,

I would give you the ability

to see yourself as I see you,

so you could see

how truly special you are."

~Author Unknown

Posed...

Unposed!
Happy Mother's Day to my Mom and Grandma!

On Friday, Frank, Rachel and I attended the Mother's Day Party at Gymboree! It was a lot of fun. They did some sweet activities to make us Mom's feel very special. We played and planted (silk) flowers in buckets then we loaded them onto a cart and the little ones went for a ride. We also did many of the regular Gymboree Play&Learn activities like the parachute and bubbles. Then we went into the Music room for our Mother's Day "tea" and petit fours. We got our pictures taken and made picture frames for them. It is so precius with Rachel's little handprint on it. Afterwards, we went to our favorite sushi restaurant. Our girl loves edamame, miso soup, sticky rice and teriyaki chicken. It was a fun, special day. Some photos...

I love this one as I caught the Da-Da in the background...videotaping with my Mother's Day "gift"...our new Flash Video Cam. Hopefully I can start adding some video to our blog!
The Mommy & Me slide!
Of course, Gymbo joined us:)...

Planting our flowers!

What immediately comes to mind when I look at this picture?

"I love this precious child."

Sweet...

Rachel & Mommy.

The little girl on the right was a doll. It was a mix of all different ages and we had not met most of the girls before. She is 3 1/2 and just the sweetest. She actually saved Rachel a seat next to her for the "tea". Rachel is not used to juice boxes, and she helped us by telling me when Rachel spilled some juice. She offered Rachel some of her own little cake. She looked up at me at one point and said "Rachel is just soooo cute." (way to melt this mommy's heart)

Making our picture frame.

Handprint time!

Rachel & Mommy!

The inside of the card says:

"To a Mom so great and true,

Thank you so much for all you do!

Thank you for Playing and Singing,

And running after me.

And thank you so much for

our fun day at Gymboree!"

I'm so glad we went! Unfortunately, the cough I had gone to the clinic for Friday morning has gotten worse and I ended up missing her classes on Saturday. Frank took her and also took some great video. He surprised me with about 6 minutes of it that he edited and out to music for me this morning. I was hoping to share it here, but I cannot figure it out yet. He put the song "Miracle" by Celine Dion on it. I have loved that song since Rachel was born and was in instant tears when it started on the video. I think Frank was quite pleased with himself! He took great care of me all weekend by letting me rest and spending lots of quality time with Rachel. He made a delicious dinner for us tonight. It was such a lovely weekend despite my cough and feeling a little under the weather. Oh, and he and Rachel were practicing and she started saying "Hap-py Ma-Ma...Day" to me Saturday! So sweet. Sometimes she leaves off the "Day" but that's okay...it's still true. She got to talk to both her Grandma's a bit when we called them. I tried to get her to say it to my mom. It came out "Hap-py Da-Da, Day!"...What?!!! Well, at least she'll be good at it by Father's Day! I hope this was a very special day or weekend for all the Mommies out there reading this. Remember it is a day to celebrate all Mommies, Mommies-To-Be, Grandmas, Aunts, Sisters, Friends...and please do not forgot the Mommies who had to kiss their Angels goodbye far too soon and have babies in Heaven. Please remember they are Mommies too...