Ronald Reagan and Me Mom

My mom's name is Wileen, the only Wileen I have ever met. My dad calls her 'Wy' sometimes. I think that is cute.

Where do I begin about my mom. I have already written that she is an incredible mom and grandmother, who is willing to sacrifice anything to help out her family. I could go on and on about the wonderful things she has done as a mother and a grandmother, but today, to celebrate her birthday, I want to tell you the things about her that make her a wonderful woman.

She is extremely, EXTREMEMLY creative. All growing up, she tackled any and all types of creativity and crafting. She is an amazing seamstress. She made us clothes, dresses, quilts, holiday decorations, purses, backpacks, car seats, couches- she even made us homemade cabbage patch dolls with clothes to go with them. She decorated cakes, toll painted, stamped, floral arranged, needle pointed. She had a file with torn out magazine pictures of ideas she liked and was inspired by that I use to love to go through and look at. She is amazing.


Sometimes, when something is so funny, she laughs uncontrollably, really loud! It is quite possibly the funniest thing I have ever seen. I can think of two distinct instances. The first is when she was telling a story of a coworker who was rooting for the Lions in the Superbowl, and instead of writing a supportive cheer for his team on the dusty side of a delivery van, he wrote, "Go Loins!" for all of Tri-Cities to see. She lost it and that was funnier than her story! A second time was when we had sister missionaries over for dinner, and one sister missionary was talking about how the mission had been having trouble with the missionaires keeping their pits, a term for their apartments, clean. But my mom didn't get the part that it was their aparment they were talking about; she was thinking arm pits. She sat there just incredulous that the mission was concerned about messy pits. Her eyes buldged out when the sister missionary informed us that the mission presidents wife was even going around, inspecting all their pits. "You mean she actually inspects their arm pits?!?" When she figured out her error, she lost it- as did everyone else. There is just something about unstoppable, uncontrollable laughter that is endearing!


My mom is very kind hearted. Maybe the nicest person I have even met. She will bend over backwards to help you out. She is also very sensitive to other people's feelings. She could always tell when we had hurt feelings and she was great about comforting us. I remember getting off the school bus when I was in elementary school one day when a kid had said embarrassing lies about me on the bus. We were sitting in the back and when I got off the bus, the driver said, "Don't you pay a bit of attention to what he was saying." That made me feel horrible, because I knew then that it had spread all the way up to the front of the bus. When I got home, my mom could tell something was wrong even though I didn't want to talk about it. But she is just so good about comforting, about making you feel like you can face any situation, because she is there to hold you up. It's a trait that had me turning to her when I was in college, when every couple of weeks there was drama of one sort or the other to call home about. And that help was priceless.

She also isn't afraid to tell you when she is proud of you. She tells me this all the time, and to me that is the best compliment she could give. I have a great mom as a role , and if I can emulate her in any way, that is something to be proud of. I love you, Mom!

Happy Birthday!

PS: She bakes the best breads ever. Period. That is not an exaggeration and there is no need to debate it. All hail the Queen!


PSS: GRRR, I can't post pics right now because of blogger, so to see my lovely mother, look no farther than here.