Happy Mother's Day!

I consider it a happy coincidence that Jack's and Thomas's birthdays always fall right around Mother's Day. I love celebrating their birthdays while remembering the joy of seeing and holding them for the very first time. G.G. told me recently that a child's birthday is also a "birth day" for the mother, in a sense.

For me, this has been true. My life changes each time we bring a new baby into the world --learning to give more of myself, learning to be happy about giving more of myself :), increasing my capacity for love and patience, increasing my capacity for worry. I am so very grateful for the gift of motherhood and for the privilege of raising three of God's children into men.

With further ado, here are my Mother's Day boys (plus one June rugrat):

Peter tries desperately these days to do whatever the big boys are doing.

Jack and Thomas were very excited about this friendly garter snake that was sunning itself on our front deck. It startled me at first because of its size, but as far as I'm concerned, it can stick around at eat as many bugs and small critters as it wants!

Jack hits for the stands at the baseball game on his birthday (thanks to Grandmom for the great pictures!)

Jack gets ready to score a run.

"So Jack, tell me how you really feel about Legos."

Daddy and Grandpa assembling Legos for the little guys.

Thomas curled up and passed out on the couch after opening presents. If you know Thomas, you know how insane this is!! I can't remember the last time he fell asleep outside of his bed. He was exhausted, plus allergies/a cold were bothering him. Fortunately his nap perked him up enough to get ready for cake and ice cream.

By request, I made a "forest cake" for the boys. They loved it!

Can you guess what song we were singing? No one cried while we sang Happy Birthday this year, but maybe it's because they couldn't hear us singing!

Peter slept for most of the festivities, but I did get a video of him last week tackling the stairs. He has triumphed over what we call "Baby Mount Everest" -- he starts off in the front room and crawls all the way to to front door. Now there's no stopping him!