Happy Birthday to my dear mom!!!

Today is my mom's birthday and I wanted to wish her a very happy one!! My mom is a very special person in my life, and a dear friend as well as being my mother. :) She is a great encouragement to me, is always willing to lend a hand with the kids or help me get caught up on housework when I get behind and stressed out! She is also a fabulous cook . . . we have a family joke that my sister and I always call "Mom's Cooking Hotline" when we have a recipe question or cooking problem. :) She is always a good listener, and I appreciate being able to share my "mommy woes" or get advice or just some comfort if I've had a rough day.

One of Mom's gifts is writing . . . not just writing articles, books, etc., although she is good at those!! . . . but also encouragement through the written word. When Jo and I were at boarding school, and later at college, she wrote us little notes nearly every day. That's a LOT of stamps, and probably a lot of writer's cramp!! (It sure would be a lot cheaper nowadays, with email . . . but we lived back in the dark ages . . . :)) It meant so much to us and kept us close as a family through those years.

Mom is also the "queen" of handmade gifts! I love that . . . it is one of the ways she expresses her love for us. One thing she made for us this Christmas was birthday banners for each of the kids. You can see some of them here on her blog! They are beautiful and I know they were a labor of love! She also made these adorable little library totes for the kids. They are so excited to use them, not just for the library, but also to carry their little notebooks and pencils to church! They will be so handy.

http://acrossmytable.blogspot.com/2010/12/hand-crafted-birthday-banner.html

Those are just a few of the things I love and appreciate about my mom. Thank you, Mom, for being a blessing in my life! Happy birthday!!!

(And if any of you would like to send birthday wishes her way, feel free to leave a comment either here, or on her blog "Across My Kitchen Table!")