Mother's Day + Other Stuff

First of all, it's Mother's Day! I'm so thankful for the amazing mother, mother-in-law, grandmas, and grandma-in-law that I have. (A detailed tribute them is here). Today as I was thinking about mothers at church (which incidentally did not include a sacrament meeting talk or lesson about mothers today!) I thought about how amazing its been to see my friends transform in to moms. I remember when I went out to visit Jane when Brooke was probably about six months old. It positively blew my mind not only to see Jane as a mom, but to see her fully embracing and loving it. 

This darling baby is Brandalee's little girl that I got to hold when I was home a couple weeks ago. Nothing warms my heart more than to see Branda and her THREE KIDS UNDER THE AGE OF FOUR. She is a champion. She loves these little humans, cares for them, and does it all with finesse. And then Danielle has IDENTICAL TWINS! I mean really, who has identical twins? Danielle does! And it feels completely natural to me to see pictures of her with two babies. This year has really driven home to me A) My friends are amazing and B) it truly is an innate and miraculous calling that all women have to motherhood. To watch the friends that I had so much fun being immature teenagers and then (chunky) college co-eds with seamlessly transform in to amazing, nurturing mothers has been mind altering. Anyway...

Otto got me these nice flowers for mother's day. His handwriting is impeccable. Ha. 

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL!

OTHER STUFFThe weekend after Chris and Ambers' Wedding they had an open house. This was awesome because we got to see more of the McNulty's before they went back to San Diego (thats Otto cuddling with his cousin Charlie) and because we got to have a cupcake baking fest:

It was fairly labor intensive, but actually quite fun. If you even want to bake a million cupcakes, call me up. 

I went down to STG a few weeks ago for a long weekend to see Branda's new babe, visit my Mom who had surgery, and got to catch Katheryn's livestock show. I was proud of Katheryn keeping it together and doing what she was obligated to do: sell the pig she'd raise, Toulouse, in an auction. It was seriously heart-wrenching. And I'm back to being a vegetarian. I've even taken to getting my eggs for a local farmer that I guarantee to have the chickens in a humane situation... So yeah, I'm sure Dan's real happy I went to this auction :)

Dan graduated from USU. That's right, DAN GRADUATED!!!! It has been a looonnnggg road. Between three different army training schools and graduations, a stint at the UofU, and finally USU, WE ARE FINALLY DONE. So now the million dollar question that everyone asks: what will you do next? Answer: we don't know. But as soon as we figure it out, we will let you know.

Finally this weekend we got to celebrate at Denise's both Mother's Day (Otto got Denise this giant card, which is directly proportional to the size of his love for her) and Dan and I's June birthdays (Dan will be gone for both of our birthdays to more Army training and Denise will be off exploring Europe). We love a good all purpose celebration. Especially when it involves TWO CAKES. 

HAPPY EVERYTHING, EVERYONE!