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Thursday, August 9, 2012

From my mother

I have a special treat- while I'm enjoying some time with my family, my sweet mother wrote a post about being a mother and what she has done to make life fun. And she is an expert- here are some ideas that she has and some glimpses of my childhood..

Hi, I'm Shelby's mom. 

Shelby asked if I might want to do a post on motherhood while she's recuperating. First off, I love being a mom. Being a mom is God's greatest gift to me. I have nine children and Shelby is the fourth in that line up. The oldest just turned 31 and the youngest is 15. 

I am one of those moms that cried when each of my kids had to go to kindergarten. My youngest son knew how hard it was on me to have him grow up. If someone asked him how old he was and I was in earshot he would whisper," I'll tell you later." But what a kind boy. He knew it would break my heart to hear that age number no matter what it was. 

I love all the seasons and holidays because there is just so much to do. Each holiday had it's own tradition. Here are just three holidays and how we celebrated.St. Patricks day we had a very green dinner, the first Monday in October was our very scary Halloween dinner,and April Fools day the kids got their own menus with crazy entries and utensils.  Being a mom helped my creative juices to fill a need. 
One of my favorite activities was for Christmas. This activity has kept us close even as the kids have moved away and gotten married.The kids draw a name of one of their siblings to give a gift to for Christmas. The catch is that the gift needs to be homemade and no one can tell who they have. The secrecy is part of the fun with no one allowed in each others bedrooms as projects get underway.The kids start early in the year getting ideas and spend many, many hours making their gifts. The greatest thing about this idea is that I found my kids were not saying, "I can't wait to see what I get for Christmas" but instead they were saying, "I can't wait to GIVE my gift." Our house is just filled with excitement and anticipation for the big day. Here is a small sampling of some of the gifts they made.

1 comment:

Cecilee said...

I enjoyed your post so much!! I think I will adopt some of your traditions!