Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today my mom celebrates her 50th birthday. There she is, on the right, just a few years ago, when she was sitting on the steps outside her grandmother's home.

I started the celebration early last night by being so excited for her big day that I totally biffed it running into one room from the other to grab a laundry basket to do some sorting. So, to celebrate the big day I present to you imagined images of rug-burned knees and a very slightly bruised forehead, and a nice list of random and in-no-particular-order reasons why I love my mom and why she is amazing or unique.

If you know my mom at all, feel free to leave comments. This way it will be like the times in years past when I would pass a card around the lunch table at school and had my friends sign a card for my mom.

• Mom accepted cards signed by my friends as a gift from me for her birthday.
• Mom taught me how to write cursive capital "L's" the summer I turned 7. This was in the car when we took a family trip to Palmyra, NY to see the Hill Cumorah Pageant. This is an important letter since it begins my middle name. I still like to write them.
• Mom gave birth to me very quickly, even when the nurses didn't believe that she was really about to birth a baby. Good thing Dad was there to alert the doctor since the nurses wouldn't get him.
• Mom helped me with school projects. I particularly remember one that I had forgotten about until after I'd been in bed a little while one night in fifth grade. And I got all the credit after she gave me the idea in sixth grade to use a red/white/blue color scheme for my poster about how a bill becomes a law.
• Mom honors her parents, also great people.
• Mom sacrificed a lot of hours of sleep and time in general to start and finish sewing things like a Queen Guinevere costume for my class's production of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and the bolero I wore on prom night my senior year. And show choir costumes. And color guard costumes. And middle school band skirts. And and and. Good thing she likes to sew. (I think she still does, anyways.)
• Mom serves others very willingly. I think growing up I didn't see this through the right frame of mind and it has taken growing up to realize how blessed our family was because of the service she gave others.
• Mom was my first YW President, and a great one.
• Mom let me keep a white lace dress that meant so much to her when I was about 2. I'm excited for Rebecca to wear it.
• Mom likes to keep things simple that can sometimes be way overdone, like luncheons at the school for volunteers and Enrichment meetings for the Relief Society.
• Mom encouraged me to get a college education and set a great example by finishing her degree.
• Mom supported me in getting a master's degree, despite the fact that it was in an incredibly long-named discipline that I'm sure was difficult to explain to anyone who asked her what in the world her daughter was studying.
• Mom has great friends.
• Mom taught me about prayer from a young age. I remember having nightmares about being kidnapped when I was probably 4 or 5 and she knelt with me in the hallway of our little home and helped me say a prayer that I'd be able to sleep well and not have bad dreams. I'm glad I have that memory of having a prayer answered.
• This just randomly occurred to me yesterday morning, but Mom went without a car from 8-2 and then 5-9 PM every day for a few weeks right before my senior year started. Marching band camp was all day long pretty much and I had to pick other kids up on the other side of town. I imagine it wasn't thrilling to sit at home on all those days.
• When she wasn't without the car, she was playing chauffeur instead. And given all the activities I did in high school that was a lot of shuttling. Again, I'm sure there would have been more exciting things to do than drive to and from the school at all hours of the night.
• Mom would get us bagels with raspberry cream cheese from the Bagel Cafe on our way home from swim team practice in the summers.
• Mom apparently has the same birthday as Blogger. But it's only 10.
• Mom loves being a grandma.
• Mom enjoys wearing bracelets. I wish I could say how many she has, that would probably be impressive.
• Mom watched our kids while we went to St. Thomas.
• Mom offers to help willingly and often.
• Mom likes to plan things.
• She makes great cinnamon rolls.
• She likes to try new recipes with me.
• She loves to visit family. And really should get a credit card that helps you rack up miles. :)
• She helped me make (or made...) prize-winning cakes for a couple years at Sunrise Valley Elementary School. Caterpillar and ladybug!
• She gives nice talks and lessons in church, some of which I can still remember from years ago.
• She once went on a blind date with someone at BYU who had the same name that she would have once she married my dad (Tracy McCoy - him, Tracey McKoy - her). Why this is still funny to me now, I'll never know.
• She was on the drill team in high school. I think as her gift to herself today she should do some jump splits.
• Mom was very encouraging when I had to practice piano. Or flute. Or bassoon. Or singing. Or dancing. Or twirling flags on the back porch with the risk of hitting the house.
• Mom was at nearly all performances I ever had growing up. I think once in high school she and dad had to split up one night because Erin had a concert the same night as me. That's dedication, folks. I think I spent more time on stage than in class, or something.
• She married a pretty good guy. :)
• She wants to go sky diving as her gift to herself this year. Jeff will keep asking her about this until it happens.
• She helped me learn to see my potential.
• She encouraged me to work hard.
• I got to use her copy of Lord of the Flies from college when I read it in middle school and high school. I remember thinking of how long she had kept it around, but really, she was pretty young 13 years ago. :)
• Mom reads great books. And I seem to remember borrowing a few of these books before she was actually finished with them. Whoops.
• Mom has nice penmanship. This helped her get a job once, it's true.
• She never (or at most, very rarely) has her eyes closed in photographs. The rest of us often do. (Ahem, Dad, ahem... Oh, and me, too.)
• She has hazel eyes, something I always thought was interesting and magical, because they are not always the same color.
• She dresses up like a clown at school on Halloween. Maybe not every year, but she has done it, and I think it's great.
• She has a lot of patience.
• Mom has a lot of charity for others, something I really came to notice when we served in the Dulles Branch for a few years when I was a teenager. She has helped me to learn that when we serve others we can really learn to love them as the Savior does; this especially applies to being a mother, so I am grateful that she has loved and served me and my sisters so that I could follow that example as a mother.

Happy Birthday, Mom. Thank you for being you! I love you!