Mother's Day

Today was my first official Mother's Day!! Words cannot express how special this day was to me. For so many years, I have looked forward to being a Mommy and today I got to celebrate the fact that I am one! All day long, I looked at Eli and thought about just how incredibly blessed I am to be a Mommy. It is such a joy! It's better than I ever thought it would be!

Yesterday, Josh and I went to Monroe for my Mother's Day shopping trip. Zue-Zue kept Eli for us (thanks, Zue-Zue!) so Josh and I could enjoy a nice day out together. We went to lots of stores and Josh didn't complain one bit! I was so impressed! My main goal was to find a dress for Mother's Day, but I didn't find one I liked in my size. There were lots of cute ones in several stores, but my size was always gone. Oh well, not finding a dress certainly didn't put a damper on my day. I ended up with quite a haul of goodies from our little shopping excursion AND I got to eat at my most favorite restaurant...Olive Garden (thanks for the gift card, Katie!).

Goodies from my Mother's Day shopping trip

I didn't expect anything at all this morning when I woke up on Mother's Day since I had gotten all those great goodies yesterday, but Josh surprised me! He had Tammy and Sue make imprints of Eli's hands in some plaster and gave it to me for Mother's Day! If you have read about Eli and know just how active he is, you will understand how amazing it is that I can even tell that they're handprints! I am so surprised that they were able to get him to hold still long enough to leave an imprint! This is a gift I will treasure forever! I'll probably be the Mom on college graduation day pulling out this memento and crying over how my baby has gotten so big! Yes, I'm a sap like that!

Eli's handprints

We got ready for church and before we left Josh took a couple of pictures of me and my favorite little boy in the entire world. Just thinking about Eli right now makes me cry. I never knew that I could love someone so much. I cannot imagine any greater joy than being his Mommy and getting to hold him, rock him, kiss him, hug him, and love on him. My heart is so full of love for this baby! God, thank you, thank you, thank you for making me a Mommy!!!

We arrived at church and they were passing out little manicure sets to all the Moms. I teared up when I got mine just because I still couldn't believe that I was a Mommy. Our church also had a moment of recognition for all the mothers out there and I cried then, too. I guess it was a pretty emotional day for me :) I remember thinking last year when I was pregnant how special Mother's Day would be for me this year when I got to stand with all the other mothers out there. I'm not going to lie. Being a Mom is one of the hardest jobs I've ever had (and my baby's only 6 months old!), but it is also the most rewarding. I can't imagine anything better! Happy Mother's Day!!