My mother is celebrating a big birthday today.
She isn’t 50 anymore and she is a decade away from being 70!
Shoot. I was never good at being coy.
For most of my life I remember my mother looking like she looked on her wedding day. She was 21 here. I was her fourth baby at 30.
She looked just as radiant on a day to day basis; just without the perfectly coiffed Farrah Faucet hair.
(Note: this was before Farrah, which makes my mom a major trend setter!)
And no, that isn’t Clark Gable escorting my mother down the isle. That is just my equally gorgeous Grandfather. 😉
My mom married this fresh faced young man after sharing their second date together. He was her fourth engagement and she was smitten immediatly. (See, everyone has always adored my mother.)
She just knew this one would treat her well and be a great life partner for her.
She was right.
Thirty nine years later and they are the best example of true love.
They are adorable together.
My mother is a Ministers Wife. She plays the supporting role, but a lot of the time has been the rock that our family and my fathers church needed.
My mother is a fantastic example of what a wife should be. Her sence of calm is enviable and her joy is contagious.
She is all I could hope to be and more.
She is the epitome of a peace maker; she is supportive and loving and gracious and sweet. A regular southern belle without living in the South and without the fried chicken.
We witnessed a lot of genuine affection between my parents growing up.
Such a blessing to have a great example of love displayed before us every day!
My siblings and I had our limits though. We would yell in unison, “No kissing in the kitchen!!!” Some areas of the home are sacred.
My mother is the oldest of four children. She learned to mother her younger brother and sister at a young age, and it made her more then ready to boss her kids around to be a mother herself.
My mother birthed six children and spent the majority of her young life bare feet and pregnant.
She got accustomed to enduring sleepless nights, nursing a crying baby while trying to eat a meal, constantly being knee deep in laundry, making meals on a limited budget and making a little-cottage-like-house a safe environment to all who passed through her front door.
She was selfless then and she is selfless now.
The family dinners and holiday gatherings are a great time for our family to fight, and fight some more catch up.
Mom is always too busy washing dishes, plating a meal, and generally making things perfect. Too busy to relax and let us wait on her. Though I’m sure we wouldn’t even know how to do half as good a job as what she does!
My mother is gifted in anything and everything creative.
We call her a hooker, and you can certainly tell why!
She makes beautiful primitive rugs out of reused wool!
My mother: the-up-cycler-creator!!!
For years, she organized crafting groups, and was a confidant to others and a loving leader to women around her.
My mother is a gifted actress.
All those years of smiling sweetly to her children amongst the chaos of raising six opinionated children, really paid off!
She has been known to make a grown man cry with her portrayal of Biblical characters Eve and Rehab and their stories of a renewed life.
My mother is a doting grandmother to 12 grand babies!!!
She can be guaranteed to hike a hill with them, sit on the beach with them, write a book with them, visit a vegan restaurant with them, bake a bunch of cookies with them, and offer lots of tales from her childhood to them.
And offer lots of smiles…
and snuggles…
My mother is a globe trotting humanitarian.
A true sweet spirit that wants to give back all that she has been blessed with.
My mother: the baby whisperer….
My mother: the bird whisper….
Her similarities shared with Snow White are no laughing matter!
Dark hair, angelic voice, affection to small animals, living life with a bunch of grumpy short people, a prince charming!!!
Disney doesn’t have anything on my mother.
My mother is so many things to so many different people.
Since becoming a mother myself, my mother has become so much more to me…
I realize now all the sacrifices she has had to make.
How selfless she has had to be for the sake of her husband, her children and her family.
I now realize that she was just a regular woman before answering to the name of my mother.
She was just a regular girl that took on the daunting task of being a ministers wife, a mother to half a dozen, a friend to the friendless, and a safe spot for many.
She is the person I most want to be like.
She is domesticated and charming without coming off as stuffy or arrogant. She is the first person to offer a genuine compliment to a cashier or a new mother.
She is optimistic and funny; her attitude and laugh are something I can only strive to emulate!
I thought she was the prettiest woman at forty and at sixty forty-five, I think she gets more stunning every day.
Her eyes are familiar and gorgeous.
The kind that say everything without ever having a voice.
Her smile is contagious and natural, she throws her head back when she laughs. She is the type of woman other woman see and want to be like.
I grew up seeing her good and her bad and I can honestly say I don’t think my mother has a bad bone in her body.
She is perfect.
The way she loves, and responds, and creates, and dotes, and serves, and smiles and gives, and snuggles and just IS.
She is perfect to me.
I cant believe I have known her for almost half of her life time.
I am so blessed to be included in the few to call my own mother…
Mama and friend.
Happy Birthday Mama!!!
I want to spend another thirty years loving you, hearing all your stories (three, or four, or a dozen times cause you can never remember who you have told what to!)
Your six babies …
and twelve grand babies…
and husband…
ADORE you!
Your life has blessed so many and we are honored to call you Mama and friend!
Have the best birthday ever…you certainly deserve it!
Love Banner made with LOVE | This Little Estate
February 24, 2017 at 4:05 am[…] PS: If you want to read more about my mother you can read the tribute I wrote to her on her 60th birthday, HERE. […]