Mother's Day

We have church at 8:00 these days, so there was no lying in bed being served breakfast on a platter for me. Which is really too bad! Kevin bought a chocolate cake last night, saying it was going to be for breakfast, and I was sort of looking forward to it!
But as I was getting ready for church, Kevin brought each of the girls in to me to tell me, "Happy Mother's Day." I loved hearing it in those sweet little voices, even as they were prompted word for word. Still sweet!
Yesterday, Kevin and the girls got me some dirt and flowers for my window boxes. Now with those all planted and birds actually visiting our bird feeder-- after only two days-- we've practically transformed our balcony into a backyard. After living in China for 2 years with no balcony, no parks, and not even any trees to speak of, this feels incredibly lush. I'm not sure I would have appreciated the "green space" on my balcony as much if I hadn't lived in China.

Our fantastic garden plot

At church, the Primary children went and sang one little song. Penny originally said she didn't want to go sing, but when the children all went to the front, Penny went along with them. We lost her in the crowd for a few moments, but as they were getting situated, we saw her smiling little face appear between a couple of the bigger kids, and she sang right along with them all.
I was super excited for Penny to go sing with the Primary kids, and I told Kevin that it was the reason I had kids in the first place. Pretty much true! It was super cute.
My Mother's Day gift (which I found online but Kevin pressed the "click to buy" button-- so he technically bought for me) was a fancy set of razor-sharp Komatsu knives, as suggested by Our Best Bites. There are thousands of websites that offer recipes and kitchen suggestions. But only a small slice of them are good, and still fewer are consistently good. This is one of the best! All their recipes I've tried are either great or amazing. I've made their recipes for company without even doing a test run beforehand, and they've been delicious! So when they recommended these knives, I felt like I could trust them with confidence. So far, so good!
And happy Mother's Day. I know that not everyone loves Mother's Day, and some people even dread and avoid it. I like it now that it's all about getting presents and doing fun things for myself, but more than that, I like it because I'm a big fan of motherhood. I think most of the world's problems could be lessened or avoided completely by mothers putting more time, effort, and love into raising and educating their children. And while it's not up to me to judge whether someone's efforts are adequate or not, I try to support mothers and motherhood in general. So happy Mother's Day!