Mother's Day

We had an interesting Mother's Day this year! For one thing, I think this was the first year that the kids really grasped the idea that this is a special day for Mom, so they were quite insistent that Miguel do something about it! Not that Miguel hadn't done anything for Mother's Day in other years, but maybe it hadn't been quite so high on the priority list...

Anyway, I broke my favorite coffee mug the other day and I noticed a lot of whispering between Micah and Gracia when they saw how sad I was about that (I tend to get attached to my coffee mugs...). So I kind of expected something along the lines of a new coffee mug. On Friday evening, the kids came home bursting with secrets, so I figured that was when the presents had been bought! :) They did a good job, though, and though there were some near disclosures, nothing too revealing was said.

They presented me with a pretty box yesterday morning with 5 red bows representing the different members of the family that the present was from. Sure enough, there was a beautiful coffee mug in there and it was perfect! It's large and has a whimsical flower design on it along with Philippians 4:13. The mug was from the kids, Miguel also gave me the perfect gift...a new Ted Dekker book!!! Yay! I love Ted Dekker and am always thrilled with the privelege of reading another of his books. This one is Blessed Child, written by Ted Dekker and Bill Bright. I haven't read much of it, but what I've read so far is pretty riveting! I am trying not to read it too fast...I tend to do that and then not enjoy the story as much as I could....kind of like gobbling down the entire chocolate bar all at once and not savoring the pleasure of its flavor.

And then Mom called with the news about the tornadoes that passed through just north of our farm in Oklahoma...some very good friends of ours lost their houses. Betty lived in one house and her son and family in another house behind Betty's and the tornado destroyed both houses. There were many other houses in the area destroyed as well, the devastation looked pretty grim in the pictures I've been seeing online. :( My heart goes out to everyone that has been affected by the storms. It is a blessing, though, to see the community coming together to begin the recovery process...even Miguel went up to help for the day! We Americans are so blessed with the security of knowing that for the most part, times of disaster will be met with helping hands, not with looting and chaos! In many other countries, this is not how things work!

We also dedicated Jkaile in church yesterday! We had been schedule to dedicate him in February, but had to cancel because we were all so sick that week. :( But it turned out very nice to be able to dedicate him on Mother's Day....we took a risk and let all the kids go up on stage with us for the dedication service and PTL everything went very well! It was some other little girl that began crying loudly and had to be taken away by her dad...I was afraid that ours would start fighting or something in front of 1200 people...yikes. Jkaile, of course, was his usual calm self and seemed to enjoy watching the pictures on the big screen!

So all in all, an interesting Mother's Day! Plenty of excitement, although we probably could have done without the tornadoes...