Tribute

This is my mom! Now that I am a mom I try everyday to be as good of a mom to Vinson as my mom was with me. I feel like I'm striving for perfection. I used to think, "Man, I must have been a great kid!" because I'd think back on my life and I honestly can't remember my mom yelling at me, or showing anything but love to me and my brothers and sisters and most of all to my dad. Now that I am a mom, I realize that this shows me more of what an amazing mom I had instead of what a good kid I was. We call home every Sunday and I'm constantly amazed at little things my mom does for my family. It makes me realize how often my mom did things for me that I didn't even notice or didn't appreciate. My mom is so good at giving me and my brothers and sisters all the love and attention we need. I remember fighting with my brothers and sisters one afternoon about who mom loved the most. I hope I can love all of my kids in a way that they will be sure I loved them all best. Mom you're the best!!
I (Dan is writing now, for a change) want to write a little something about my mom too... I like to think back on the times before I started kindergarten and during the summers in elementary school, when I spent a lot more time with mom and watched her weekday routine. I was always impressed with the way she worked hard to take care of the yard and garden, the seemingly never-ending dirty clothes and dirty dishes, vaccuuming, mopping and whatever else needed to be done. Through all of this, however, she was always there when I needed her and she spent time answering my questions, encouraging my curiosity and helping me explore my world through books and stories. I especially appreciate the way mom focused on teaching us to work. Although, we never seemed to make the (BIG) yard and garden as nice as mom would have liked, I have a lot of good memories of the projects we did complete and progress and upkeep that we did manage to do.
To this day, my favorite smell in the world (especially when I'm hungry) is my mom's homemade bread. She made a big batch of bread (five loaves) nearly every week. I loved eating the fresh bread, hot from the oven with homemade raspberry jam. THANKS MOM! I love you!