Mama said there'd be days like this

I'll bet you thought I forgot about Mother's Day. Never fear. We spent the whole day prank calling other people's mothers. Just to make sure they were loved. No, in reality we spent the whole day being awesomely loving, adoring, and helpful children and making our mothers forget they had any other children because we are so exceedingly awesome. Kimberly was so excited for her first Mother's Day that she started singing my praises at four in the morning and didn't stop for two hours. I was really, really excited about all that quality mothering time. Fortunately, our ward rewarded my diligent early morning mothering with a lot of chocolate, which kept me from passing out in the middle of Sunday School.

After church, we headed over to Jessie's mom's house to sing her praises, give her foot massages, and beat her at pinochle. Because we're nice like that. I feel like in honor of the occasion you all need a picture of my amazing mother-in-law. Indulge me.

I am indebted to this woman. She taught Jessie to clean when he's bored and put the toilet seat down. She spoils my kids and her house is party central where we all go hang out and stare at each other, followed by massive raves where we all break dance and do Charlie Sheen impressions. Also she doesn't mind when Jessie and I get out of control with our your mom jokes. Did I mention she had thirteen children and is still sane? My hero.

Then we went on over to my mom's to mooch food and be awesome. My mom will probably kill me, but I have to post a picture of her too. Watch out. The picture may try to hug you.

I love my mom. I get all my most awesome qualities from her. Like waking up in the middle of the night with crazy dreams and calling my brother to make sure he didn't die in a train wreck. And we both cry a lot, although my mom still creams me in quality and quantity. Thanks mom, for making me emotionally unstable. Some day I hope to also get all her awesome qualities, like unconditional generosity, love, and figure skating skills. My mom put up with my teenage rebellion (in college. I was perfect as a teenager. Obviously.) She puts up with my daily phone calls because I don't know how to mother, cook, clean, shop, or salsa dance without calling her first. She can soothe my cranky babies when everyone else has inserted the ear plugs. Thanks mom.

Also, as may be obvious by his gender and age, this person is not my mother:

But we got to talk to him by Skype Sunday. This fine young specimen of LDS boyhood is my brother currently serving a mission in Chile, and he is awesome (which I am contractually obligated to say since he is out serving the Lord and stuff.) We had the most awesome phone call ever. He was over a half hour late, so we called the number he gave us and talked to him and his companion long enough to figure out that a) his companion didn't know his first name and b) they are typical missionaries and were running late. Then we skyped for about half an hour where he could hear us but we couldn't hear him, so we mostly talked to him and he smiled and mugged and communicated by sign language and chat. And we learned to read lips. Then we got sound and found out he now sounds like a girl. (Not really.) He's alive and well, riding Chilean buses and eating some compound that I think may or may not resemble Nesquick in unhealthy quantities. He may have stolen the Mother's Day limelight, but how can you stay mad at that face? I didn't post the one where he was sticking out his tongue at us. Because we still love each other enough from 3000 miles away to waste time mocking each other. Fun treat getting to see his ugly mug. And getting to learn how to pronounce his companion's name.

Hope you all had such an awesome Mother's Day too. I plan on having about twenty children just so I can get twenty Mother's Day gifts every year. Sometimes my genius surprises even me.