Happy Mothers Day to Me!

My Mother’s Day was a really special day this year because Elora is old enough to understand what it is! I woke up to Elora asking Chris, “Can we make mommy breakfast in bed now? Don’t wake her up yet, she is sleeping!” I had some wonderful buttermilk pancakes with strawberries and buttermilk syrup – my favorite! It was fun listening to the kids in the kitchen asking for pancakes repeatedly the entire time Chris was cooking them. And he made them wait until I got mine before he gave them any! Brave man.Chris also prepared me some lunch. He calls this the Vienna Kebap. Instead of kebap meat, he made Nurnburger bratwurst, and put them on a Semmel roll with tomato, lettuce, yogurt, and camembert cheese. It was really good. And he is so proud of his creation that if he ever has a kebap shop, he insists he will sell his newly invented Viennese Kebap along with Turkish Kebaps!Chris’ mom bought this adorable suit for Oliver. We have been waiting for him to be big enough to wear it, and decided what better day for him to wear his suit for the first time than Mother’s Day? He wasn’t so sure about it while we were dressing him, but we stuck him in front of a mirror with Chris and told him he was going to wear a tie just like daddy, and a white shirt just like daddy, and a jacket just like daddy! After telling him how handsome he was many times, he started showing off his new suit to everyone. So cute. I tried to convince Chris that Oliver should wear nicer shoes, but I was vetoed by Ollie.Here we are on the U-Bahn on the way to church. Oliver loves to stand on the seats and look out the windows at the all the trains that pass by.
During Relief Society, all the primary children came in to sing a special song for the moms. It was so cute, because Elora was so obviously excited, but very shy about singing for an audience. Which is funny, because we have been told that she is the loudest singer in primary.Here is her happy face she had while singing. She kept inching closer and closer to me while singing the song. And she was so proud of herself when they finished! She gave me a nice gift – a little bag of m&m’s that came with a game to play – for each different color m&m there was a question to answer. For Elora’s questions, she told me that if she could go anywhere in the world with me, she would want to go to the park because we have fun there, and one of the reasons she loves me is because “You’re my special mama.”I tried really hard to get a good pic of the kids in their church clothes. This one is the best of the two of them. Elora is proudly wearing her ski medal to church every week still.Oliver started digging in my purse and found a bag of gummy bears, which the kids shared very nicely (and ate all of…)Ollie posing in his “big boy suit” with daddy.Elder Hoehne is one of the missionaries in our ward, and he just got transferred. So we took a picture before he left. You can see how much Elora loves missionaries (and posing for the camera). Oliver was really tired and totally all done by this point.But! He got a second wind when he discovered this metal grate outside that makes a fun noise when you step on it. He danced on it for 15 solid minutes before we bribed him with candy to get him into the stroller.Here is a little video of Ollie’s dancing skills. Notice his special stomp step he throws into the end his routine. He did that every time. And of course, he cheers for himself when he finishes.Finally back home at 6:30pm after leaving for church at 12:15 today… some neighbors were outside so we talked with them for about an hour before heading inside to cook dinner. Such a late night for the kids… But they had a great time playing outside for a little while. Here is Oliver looking very handsome and standing by his favorite bush – he picks the berries off of it and enjoys throwing them.And here is beautiful princess Elora. This is her new dress and she really loves it. She enjoyed picking flowers, and making houses for snails and bees while we played outside. What a lucky mom I am to have such sweet and happy children. They make being a mom so much fun.