Mother's Day Weekend 2014

I just wrote a big nice post with lots of photos all about Mother's Day. Then it disappeared. I was trying to move one picture and suddenly, everything was gone. Darn. Darn. Darn.

Here's the second try - which'll be pretty basic!

We had the privilege of having Jared's mom with us for the weekend. She came down for Eliza's big annual dance concert on Saturday and we invited her to stay through Mother's Day so we could celebrate with her. It was great to be able to celebrate in person! She was able to join us for a fun stake Activity Days mother-daughter activity on Friday evening, the dance concert on Saturday, exploring the beautiful "Women and Everyday Charity" art exhibit at the Church History Museum, some good shopping at City Creek and at Ikea, a wonderful Mother's Day breakfast and dinner prepared by Jared and the kids, church including some great Mother's Day talks and cute primary kids singing, an impressive guitar concert and lovely violin concert courtesy of Ashton and Eliza, and a great visit with Jared's brother Joel and family who joined us for dessert.

Here's our weekend in photos:

Mother-Daughter Activity on Friday night:

We had a GREAT group of girls from our ward come to the event - and ALL their mothers were able to make it (two of them left before we took this photo). So great to meet several moms I've never met before. I love these sweet girls!

They did these cute mother-daugher photos:

Eliza with her dear friend Rachel:

Satruday's big dance concert:

Here's Eliza with her dear dance friends, heading in to put thier costumes on:

 

My parents were able to join us for the concert and for lunch afterwards:

Portia (Jared's mom) and I came down on Mother's Day morning to find wonderful flowers and beautiful decorations imagined and created completely by the kids. Plus Jared made some excellent egg burritos with assistance from many little chefs.

Then my sweet mom was able to join us after church: (photo courtesy of Silas - he's working on holding the camera still...)


We enjoyed a beautiful dinner that Jared and the kids prepared:

The twins set the table and insisted on the best china and the gold chargers along with an old rumpled tablecloth and tumblers to drink out of - I thought it was nice symbolism for the way motherhood mixes together the beautiful and precious with the necessary mundane...

After dinner, Eliza and Ashton did beautiful violin and guitar concerts as a special Mother's Day gift for me and my mom and Portia:

Dessert with Jared's brother Joel and family: (the twins made me my favorite dessert - rhubarb crisp. yum.)

Such a wonderful weekend! 

I am so blessed to have such a stellar and stalwart mother-in-law and such a wonderful mother.

Happy Mother's Day to us all!