Bubbles, Kids, and Mothers

Today I relearned why bubbles were created. Aside from being a natural occurrence, bubble liquid was created and stored in little bottles with bubble blowing sticks for one reason--little girls (ok...children in general, but girls in my case). Today Danette was reading to Katie and the children (or animals) in the book were playing with bubbles (or something--I was not really sitting on the magic rug making her read to me too, I was just sitting in the room working on my computer slyly eavesdropping to hear the exciting little story... I digress.) And Katie started saying buhbuh? buhbuh! buhbuh! (Bubble) and got really excited. She had seen bubbles in nursery a few weeks ago and did not really know what to do. She just stared at all the other kids while they ran around destroying (trying to catch) the bubbles. But she knew what they were now. Danette asked if she wanted to play with bubbles. That got her really excited, and she said buhbuh! over and over again with bright excited little eyes. Danette got a bottle down from the cupboard in the kitchen a blew them in the kitchen--right there not caring where they landed (true motherly love--blowing bubbles in her sparkly clean kitchen and letting them land on counter tops and beautiful wood floors) covering the surfaces with little soapy circles. She blew them up above Katie's head and Kati would squeal with delight and try to catch the bubbles. She would see one and follow it to the ground until it burst. What fun. She LOVED it.
Having lived at BYU in a singles ward for the past 4 years I have really missed little kids--sure there are enough to go around in Happy Valley, not in singles wards. You have to make a real effort if you want to be involved in kids lives there. It makes me miss Tori and Michael. Adorable little children that I never get over to see often enough.

Mothers Day was a happy one for me. For a few weeks I had been thinking that this is the second in a row that I have not been with my mother for her special day--and that made me miss her and wish I could be there (I was in Jerusalem last year). I worried that I was not there to make it a great day for her--which was stupid because Kenny and Meggan were both there to do that. As well as Roger, who would not let something like that go unnoticed. I'm just the worrier in the family I guess (Clarification: I'm not really a worrier, but compared to the other people in my family...I'm practically all we got). After I called and talked to her--I realized something (that I already knew);My mom has a way of filling her life with things she wants to do and not making people plan to make her happy (that's not saying she does not let us do things for her though). She was watching some crazy scientific video with Kenny and making baby blankets with Meggan--just because she wanted to. Kenny and Meggan brought over chocolate cake and pizza the night before so she could have it for breakfast. I am not sure if it is her favorite, but it is tradition so I hope she likes it because she will get it now for mother's day and her birthday until the day one of us dies. At that point Roger was making dinner--some crazy chicken thing, I'm sure it was good, great, grand! They got to talk to Mckay (Elder Knowles) and said he is doing wonderful. I'm a little jealous I was not there to talk to him again--not like we would have chatted it up, but it would have been nice to hear his voice and thank him in person for the sunset picture he sent just to me. He's a good kid.
Mother's Day in Washington was--well rainy. (gasp) Shocker, I know. I got up and made muffins--which, aside from a little setback, were quite good. Then we went to church and tried to fit the little family on one of the side pews--no luck. Brandon had to sit in the row ahead of us. I think we could have fit--but not with Katie moving around, we would have had to play musical chairs with her. I was a considered old enough to receive the Mother's Day gift. It was a CD of hymns. They are pleasantly nice arrangements. We came home and took a nap (much needed) and went to the Smith's house for dinner. Going to their house for dinner is like going to a gourmet restaurant without having to dress-up. Both of them are amazing cooks. We had steak with some kind of sauce, potatoes, veggies in cheese sauce (one of my favorites) and salad (really, really good salad). I don't have time to give the descriptions justice--just know that it was bon apatite. I let their little girl do my hair--she wanted to brush it. That would have been disastrous--I tried to explain that to her (she has Barbie's hair--big, blond, and straight), that it would be a bad experience for the both of us. It turned out ok--she put in a few clips and then decided it was not worth the trouble and went with a simple ponytail. I did her hair instead. It went a little better.