This site is dedicated to our best friend - mother. The unconditional love she has for us has been has made each of us feel we are the luckiest people in the world for having her as our mother.
It is believed that Mother’s Day, 2nd Sunday in May. Mother’s Day was first recognized in 1907. Ana Jarvis, who was from Philadelphia, began a campaign to establish a national Mother's Day. Ms. Jarvis persuaded her mother's church in Grafton, West Virginia to celebrate Mother's Day on the second anniversary of her mother's death, the 2nd Sunday of May.
Six years later President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May for public observance of Mother’s Day. It is now observed in countries all around the world, including England, France, Sweden, Denmark, India, China, and Mexico, where the celebration lasts 2 days. Carnations are the Mother’s Day flowers: pink to be worn for a living mother and white if the mother has died. Children honor their mothers on this day with gifts, visits, and the wearing of carnations.
In Queen Victoria's era, Mother's Day was not actively celebrated although she would have approved of it since she was known as the great-grandmother of Europe and was devoted to her family and her nine children. She would have approved of a tea party to celebrate Mother's Day since she never missed afternoon tea. Bring out your best china, silver and linens to honor the queen of your family ~ Mom!
Red indicates your mother is alive
White indicates your mother passed away
Yellow indicates you're a Bereaved Mother.
* * * * *
As children age, they begin to realize the value of a mother's love and the enormous depth of her committment. No relationship we form can ever be as close or profound.
The series of photos displayed here are of us with our mother; our mother with her mother; and our mother with a few of her grandchildren.
A mother is someone to shelter and guide us,
By Katherine Nelson Davis
To love us, whatever we do,
With a warm understanding and infinite patience
And wonderful gentleness, too.
How often a mother means swift reassurance
In soothing our small, childish fears,
How tenderly mothers watch over their children
And treasure them all through the years!
The heart of a mother is full of forgiveness
For any mistake, big or small,
And generous always in helping her family,
Whose needs she has placed above all.
A mother can utter a word of compassion
And make all our cares fall away,
She can brighten a home with the sound of her laughter
And make life delightful and gay.
A mother possesses incredible wisdom
And wonderful insight and skill -
In each human heart is that one special corner
Which only a mother can fill!
Sometimes in our lives we meet other mothers who are very special. Another mom in our lives is my better half's mom. She is so much like my own mother that we can't help but love her! This page is also dedicated to Dorothy.
A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.
--Victor Hugo
All that I am or hope to be I owe to my angel mother. I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.
--Abraham Lincoln
A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.
--Washington Irving
A mother had a slender, small body, but a large heart -- a heart so large that everybody's grief and everybody's joy found welcome in it, and hospitable accommodation.
--Mark Twain
The mother loves her child most divinely, not when she surrounds him with comfort and anticipates his wants, but when she resolutely holds him to the highest standards and is content with nothing less than his best.
--Hamilton Wright Mabie
A Mother's Day Thought
When God Made Moms
By Erma Bombeck
This is for all the mothers who DIDN'T win Mother of the Year. All the runners-up and all the wannabes. The mothers too tired to enter or too busy to care.
This is for all the mothers who froze their buns off on metal bleachers at soccer games Friday night instead of watching from cars, so that when their kids asked, "Did you see my goal?" they could say, "Of course, wouldn't have missed it for the world," and mean it.
This is for all the mothers who have sat up all night with sick toddlers in their arms, wiping up barf laced with Oscar Mayer wieners and cherry Kool-Aid saying, "It's OK honey, Mommy's here."
This is for all the mothers of Kosovo who fled in the night and can't find their children.
This is for the mothers who gave birth to babies they'll never see. And the mothers who took those babies and made them homes.
For all the mothers of the victims of the Colorado shooting, and the mothers of the murderers. For the mothers of the survivors, and the mothers who sat in front of their TVs in horror, hugging their child who just came home from school, safely.
For all the mothers who run carpools and make cookies and sew Halloween costumes. And all the mothers who DON'T.
What makes a good mother anyway? Is it patience? Compassion? Broad hips? The ability to nurse a baby, cook dinner, and sew a button on a shirt, all at the same time? Or is it heart? Is it the ache you feel when you watch your son or daughter disappear down the street, walking to school alone for the very first time? The jolt that takes you from sleep to dread, from bed to crib at 2 a.m. to put your hand on the back of a sleeping baby? The need to flee from wherever you are and hug your child when you hear news of a school shooting, a fire, a car accident, a baby dying?
I think so.
This is for reading "Goodnight, Moon" twice a night for a year. And then reading it again."Just one more time."
This is for all the mothers who mess up. Who yell at their kids in the grocery store and swat them in despair and stomp their feet like a tired 2 year old who wants ice cream before dinner.
This is for all the mothers who taught their daughters to tie their shoelaces before they started school. And for all the mothers who opted for Velcro instead.
For all the mothers who bite their lips-sometimes until they bleed-when their 14 year olds dye their hair green.
Who lock themselves in the bathroom when babies keep crying and won't stop.
This is for all the mothers who show up at work with spit-up in their hair and milk stains on their blouses and diapers in their purse.
This is for all the mothers who teach their sons to cook and their daughters to sink a jump shot.
This is for all mothers whose heads turn automatically when a little voice calls "Mom?" in a crowd, even though they know their own offspring are at home.
This is for mothers who put pinwheels and teddy bears on their children's graves.
This is for mothers whose children have gone astray, who can't find the words to reach them.
This is for all the mothers who sent their sons to school with stomach aches, assuring them they'd be just FINE once they got there, only to get calls from the school nurse and hour later asking them to please pick them up. Right away.
This is for young mothers stumbling through diaper changes and sleep deprivation. And mature mothers learning to let go.
For working mothers and stay-at-home mothers. Single mothers and married mothers. Mothers with money, mothers without.
So this is for all the mothers who sat down with their children and explained all about making babies. And for all the mothers who wanted to but just couldn't.
©1999 Cindy Lange-Kubick
Columnist, Lincoln Journal Star
Lincoln, Nebraska, USA
A Child's Angel
Once upon a time there was a child ready to be born.
One day he asked God: "They tell me you are sending me to earth tomorrow, how am I going to live there being so small and helpless?"
GOD replied, "Among the many angels, I chose one for you. She will be waiting for you and will take care of you."
"But tell me, here in Heaven, I don't do anything else but sing and smile, that's enough for me to be happy."
"Your angel will sing for you and will also smile for you every day. And you will feel your angel's love and be happy."
"And how am I going to be able to understand when people talk to me, if I don't know the language that men talk?"
"Your angel will tell you the most beautiful and sweet words you will ever hear, and with much patience and care, your angel will teach you how to speak."
"And what am I going to do when I want to talk to you?"
"Your angel will place your hands together and will teach you how to pray."
"I've heard that on earth there are bad men. Who will protect me?"
"Your angel will defend you even if it means risking its life."
"But I will always be sad because I will not see you anymore."
"Your angel will always talk to you about me and will teach you the way for you to come back to me, even though I will always be next to you."
At that moment there was much peace in Heaven, but voices from earth could already be heard.
And the child in a hurry asked softly: "Oh God, if I am about to leave now, please tell me my angel's name."
"Your angel's name is of no importance, you will call your angel: 'Mommy'."
By Erma Bombeck
Why Mothers Cry
Why are you crying?" he asked his mom. "Because I'm a mother," she told him. "I don't understand," he said. His mom just hugged him and said, "You never will!" Later the little boy asked his father why Mother seemed to cry for no reason. "All mothers cry for no reason," was all his dad could say. The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why mothers cry. So he finally put in a call to God and when God got on the phone the man said, "God, why do mothers cry so easily." God said, "You see son, when I made mothers they had to be special. I made their shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world, yet gentle enough to give comfort. I gave them an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that many times come from their children. "I gave them a hardiness that allows them to keep going when everyone else gives up, and to take care of their families through sickness and fatigue without complaining. "I gave them the sensitivity to love their children under all circumstances, even when their child has hurt them very badly. This same sensitivity helps them to make a child's boo-boo feel better and helps them share a teenager's anxieties and fears. "I gave them a tear to shed. It's theirs exclusively to use whenever it's needed. It's their only weakness. It's a tear for mankind."
By Erma Bombeck
For All Moms
We are sitting at lunch when my daughter casually mentions that she and her husband are thinking of "starting a family". "We're taking a survey," she says, half-joking. "Do you think I should have a baby?"
"It will change your life," I say, carefully keeping my tone neutral. "I know," she says, "no more sleeping in on weekends, no more spontaneous vacations...."
But that is not what I meant at all. I look at my daughter, trying to decide what to tell her. I want her to know what she will never learn in childbirth classes. I want to tell her that the physical wounds of child bearing will heal, but that becoming a mother will leave her with an emotional wound so raw that she will forever be vulnerable.
I consider warning her that she will never again read a newspaper without asking "What if that had been MY child?" That every plane crash, every house fire will haunt her. That when she sees pictures of starving children, she will wonder if anything could be worse than watching your child die.
I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish suit and think that no matter how sophisticated she is, becoming a mother will reduce her to the primitive level of a bear protecting her cub. That an urgent call of "Mom!" will cause her to drop her best crystal without a moment's hesitation.
I feel I should warn her that no matter how many years she has invested in her career, she will be professionally derailed by motherhood. She might arrange for childcare, but one day she will be going into an important business meeting and she will think of her baby's sweet smell. She will have to use every ounce of her discipline to keep from running home, just to make sure her baby is all right.
I want my daughter to know that everyday decisions will no longer be routine. That a five year old boy's desire to go to the men's room rather than the women's at McDonald's will become a major dilemma. That right there, in the midst of clattering trays and screaming children, issues of independence and gender identity will be weighed against the prospect that a child molester may be lurking in that restroom.
However decisive she may be at the office, she will second-guess herself constantly as a mother.
Looking at my attractive daughter, I want to assure her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy, but she will never feel the same about herself. That her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once she has a child. That she would give it up in a moment to save her offspring, but will also begin to hope for more years - not to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her child accomplish theirs.
I want her to know that a caesarian scar or shiny stretch marks will become badges of honor. My daughter's relationship with her husband will change, but not in the way she thinks. I wish she could understand how much more you can love a man who is careful to powder the baby or who never hesitates to play with his child. I think she should know that she will fall in love with him again for reasons she would now find very unromantic.
I wish my daughter could sense the bond she will feel with women throughout history who have tried to stop war, prejudice and drunk driving. I hope she will understand why I can think rationally about most issues, but become temporarily insane when I discuss the threat of nuclear war to my children's future.
I want to describe to my daughter the exhilaration of seeing your child learn to ride a bike. I want to capture for her the belly laugh of a baby who is touching the soft fur of a dog or a cat for the first time. I want her to taste the joy that is so real, it actually hurts.
My daughter's quizzical look makes me realize that tears have formed in my eyes. "You'll never regret it," I finally say. Then I reach across the table, squeeze my daughter's hand and offer a silent prayer for her, and for me, and for all of the mere mortal women who stumble their way into this most wonderful of callings. This blessed gift from God . . . that of being a Mother.
Author Unknown
Mother's Day Mini-Hats
One of my favorite television stations is Home and Garden Television. I recently viewed a program that had a very good idea regarding making a Hat Tree for Mother's Day.
Mother's Day Mini-Hats Steps:
Variation Suggestions:
Whether it's a centerpiece for the Mother's Day luncheon, or just for Mother's Day fun at home, these little hats are fun, easy, and inexpensive to make. Even if you don't have a
special event on your calendar, you might make these for a Barbie doll, for place card holders, or just because they really ARE fun to make.
Materials:
Styrofoam cups
acrylic paint, nylon net, ribbon, rubber stamps, etc. for decoration
cookie sheet
Compliments of HGTV
A Gift for Mama
By Esther Hautzig, Donna Diamond
I Liked You At Ten... I’ll Like You Again
By P. Taylor Copeland, Suzi Bliss Kyle
Ideals Mother's Day
More Than 50 Years of Celebrating Life's Most Treasured Moments
By Ideals
Morning Glory Mother
By Carol Lynn Pearson
Mother's Day Crafts
Holiday Crafts Series
By Jean Eick
Mothers of the Bible
A Worship Service for Mother's Day or Other Special Occasions
By Lynda Pujado
My Very Own Mother's Day
A Book of Cooking and Crafts
By Robin West, Robert L. Wolfe, Diane Wolfe, Jackie Urbanovic
The Mother's Day Mice
By Eve Bunting, Jan Brett
