All 60 reasons: Found them in my history log with notification that they may not be able to be viewed due to privacy settings. I cant figure it out as my settings are set to public. Who knows, but here they are. Thanks kids. I love you all mucho grande (my best attempt at Spanish). Your chitlins (which is a gross term, by the way) have all worked together to come up with the top 60 reasons we love our mom. Though there are plenty more reasons, these are the ones that came to mind first: 60. She raised 8 kids as a single parent. With help from those who loved us most. 59. She’s a rebel in her own right. She wore jeans in high school when it was the rule that girls were NOT towear pants. She did it anyway. And she wonders where Shea’s mantra of “I do what I want” came from… 58. She is the “middle child” of 5 kids- no assumptions, please. 57. Phil Collins/Genesis- WTH does sus-sussudio mean anyway? It doesn’t matter. When mama cranks up the tape playing on the stereo in the car, we all get to jam to it and learn to love it like she does. 56. “Alrighty-dighty-schmighty bites” 55. She made it through Tara’s teen years without a stroke or heart attack. 54. She made it through Heather’s teen years without a stroke or heart attack. 53. She made it through Caleah’s teen years without a stroke or heart attack. 52. She made it through Rebekah’s teen years without a stroke or heart attack. 51. She made it through Bethany’s teen years without a stroke or heart attack. 50. She made it through Karissa’s teen years without a stroke or heart attack. 49. She made it through Shea’s teen years without a stroke or heart attack. 48. She made it through Calvin’s teen years without a stroke or heart attack. 47. If you’d been in our house, you’d understand why these each get their own line. Some were worse than others (ahem, Heather. Cough, cough.) If my mom is anything like a cat (which she’s not) and has 9 lives, she’s gotta be working on her last one after 8 teenage kids. Careful mama. Helmets and bubble wrap can be your friend. 46. She is incredibly independent and taught us to be the same. She insisted we go to college so that in case we ever needed to financially support our families, we could do so easier with a degree than without. Several of us are now in single income households. It sounds like an oxymoron to be independent and a stay-at-home mom at the same time. Being independent doesn’t mean you hold your spouse at a distance. It means you love and stay together because you want to, not because you need to. It eliminates the feeling of being trapped and is liberating in a relationship. 45. “Dag-nabbit” 44. She is so smart. I can’t even begin to count how many papers she wrote for me over the years. Not papers for school, of course. You know, research papers that everyone writes for the fun of it. 43. She is the most selfless person I know. I know not to give her a gift card because she will use it to buy something for somebody else. I gave her a department store gift card for her birthday when I was in college. She did my laundry (thanks, ma!) that weekend and noticed my jeans needed replaced. She spent her gift card to buy me new jeans. 42. Unconditional love- and believe me, we threw her some doozies over the years and by-golly she never once gave up on us. 41. As much as I loved her cooking, I detested smorgasbord a.k.a. “SCHMORGASBORD” dinners. I’m fairly certain that was her favorite meal too… 40. We didn’t have a dishwasher growing up. When asked, mom would say “I don’t need a dishwasher, I have 8 of them.” 39. “Hardy har-har-har” 38. She is a crazy hard worker. She has numerous aches and pains to prove it. 37. You can always count on her. She’s so very dependable! 36. She is low maintenance and proud of it. You don’t have to put on airs around her. In fact, she would prefer you didn’t. 35. My mama loves Jesus. Her hardships in life have only solidified her faith and given her PLENTY of opportunities to pray “the blood of Jesus” over every one of us. 34. She loves us. She doesn’t say a generic “love ya” like she’s embarrassed to direct her affection at anyone in particular. She says “I love you bunches and bunches.” I believe her. 33. She is so easy to be around- it could be because she’s low maintenance. Or because she can have a conversation with just about anybody. Either way, we love being around her. 32. She is extremely helpful to her kids- sometimes to a fault, according to some. She would literally give her last dime to any one of us. That is not just a cliché. It’s true of my mama! She takes her vacation from work to stay with us for a week after we have a baby. Not to just mill around and oogle over the baby. She WORKS! She cooks and cleans like our houses have never seen. We have all cried on the day she’s leaving because we don’t believe we can do it without her help. Turns out, we can get by, but it sure doesn’t look or taste as good without her help! 31. Doesn’t complain (much.) When she does, it’s for a good reason! 30. She puts thought into gift buying. She starts writing down ideas for next year’s Christmas gifts about as soon as Christmas is over! 29. She has a great sense of humor…that clearly got passed down through the ranks. 28. Laughs at a good fart joke. Even if I personally don’t believe there is such a thing as a “good” fart joke. She finds it humorous. I find it humorous that she finds it humorous. 27. She is incredibly beautiful, even though she will disagree, which also makes her humble. 26. She is a good story teller- even if she tells the same story over and over. I suppose that’s the bad thing about having so many kids- you forget who you already told! 25. She has eyes (and ears) in the back of her head. She knows EVERTHING about all of us kids! We always give her a hard time about it, but a lot of the time, she is how we find out what is going on in our siblings lives! 24. She is an early bird and needs her sleepy-time medicine to help shut her brain off at night to go to sleep. 23. She is adventurous! She has hiked part of the Appalachian Trail and doesn’t read recipes when baking. 22. She secretly enjoys all the drama that goes along with having 15 kids and 19 grandkids. 21. Speaking of secrets- she can’t keep one. If she has 1, she’ll tell you “see I can keep a secret, I have 1 that I’m not telling you right now!” After promises not to tell anybody, we can usually finagle it out of her. Then we find out they weren’t really secrets anyway. We already heard about it through the family grapevine. Hmmmm, so maybe she DOES have secrets we don’t know about…. 20. She doesn’t drain the grease when cooking hamburger because “that’s where all the flavor is!” Although I don’t disagree with her rationale, I eat her lasagna with a spoon instead of a fork. You’ve never tasted a lasagna as good as hers. “I GARONTEE it!” 19. She prays for us on a regular basis. She believes with all of her heart that God hears and will answer her prayers according to His will and purpose. She may not always like His answers or timing, but she respects it anyway. 18. She prefers comfy clothes over the ones that are required for public decency. She’s always “chomping at the bit” to get home and changed into stretchy pants and long nightshirts. 17. She’s used a particular mixture of perfumes/scent over the years. I think of my mom every time I smell patchouli! 16. When I learned to drive, I used my right foot for gas and left for the brake. I always waited until 18 inches before the stop sign to slow down and ALWAYS threw my right arm across the chest of the passenger riding shot gun. Bet you’ll never guess who taught me how to drive! The same mama who has like zero traffic violations/incidents. Or very few anyway. 15. Her hearing is not the greatest (too much Phil Collins blaring, maybe?) and her lip reading skills are even worse. We end up having a 10 minute discussion of what was said and how it wasn’t nearly as funny as what she thought was said! 14. She always roots for the underdog. She also likes to play “devil’s advocate” in debates. Not that she disagrees with you, but wants to ensure the underdog party is being fairly represented. 13. If I had a dollar for every business idea this woman has come up with….well, I’d have enough seed money to get her started on at least one of them. 12. She is a talented artist. I was probably in high school before I realized that some of the drawings I’d seen laying on her light table were done by her! (I don’t remember questioning why she had a light table either. “HELLO McFLY!”) The sketches are really impressive. 11. She always has good advice. It may not be the advice we want to hear at that exact moment, but it is always for our best interest, and that is always proved so down the road. 10. Ain’t nobody going hungry when my mama cooks. If it is a party of 20 she is preparing food for, 50 could show up, get a belly full and still take home a plate of leftovers! Except if it’s chicken&noodles and mashed potatoes dinner- there are no leftovers after that meal. 9. She puts on a tough front even in the most painful circumstances- sometimes through literal pain. She went through Calvin and Brittany’s wedding & reception having an appendicitis attack. She didn’t want to ruin their day, so she did not complain and continued on as if nothing was amiss. Later that night, she ended up in the ER having an emergency appendectomy. 8. She taught us as kids that we shouldn’t fight with each other because we might someday need our siblings for a babysitter. We laughed and thought she was crazy. Turns out mama did know what she was talking about. There are a lot of other things too that she predicted that have come to pass. 7. She has a special place in her heart for Muppets movies. 6. She admits that she has learned the hard way to not say something that you may have to later apologize for- even if you’re sure that you are right. She hates to apologize, but she will if she needs to. 5. As a teenager, my mom didn’t want ANY kids. She now says she thinks having 8 kids was God’s way of showing his sense of humor. Lesson learned: don’t tell God your plans- wait for Him to tell you the plan. 4. The woman can’t keep her eyes open in a picture to save her life. Her beaming, beautiful smile usually makes up for it though! 3. Watch out for mama bear. She’s protective and she’s scrappy. Don’t be messin’ with her babies. 2. She is not concerned with material things. She believes a car is simply a means to get you from point A to point B. Who cares if it has air conditioning? It lowers the gas mileage anyway. 1. She is going to be so embarrassed (and possibly offended) by this post :o) She loves her family with all her heart. She is proud of all 34 of us. Though she understands we are far from perfect, we are perfect for her…and she is the perfect mama for us. HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAY, MOM!!! WE LOVE YOU BUNCHES AND BUNCHES!!!
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 20:23:42 +0000
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