Saturday, August 23, 2008

Best of the Best Mothers-in Law


Three Lovely Ladies

I really miss the mothers-in-law of all our children. They are all such great ladies and I love it whenever we can get together and just talk and share stories about our grandkids and how totally awesome it is to be their grandmothers.

You know how it is, you wants to brag about your kids and grandkids but you really have to exercise a certain amount of decorum in that area. Like maybe your friends truly do not want to hear it again.

But the other mom...oh yeah...it is great. You can talk and talk and talk about it and they are a captive audience and you are one for them too. It is the best. I wish I lived closer to Mary Jane, Barbara, and Janet. I love them all and how they have raised such great kids that impact our kids in such wonderful ways. I love how they treat our grandkids with love and caring and fun times together. I love how we all share a common foundation in the Gospel and I think of us all as one big family. Of course the grandpas are great too, but just this minute I was thinking about the moms! I just really love them all.



Mary Jane & Read

Mary Jane, (Lowell's mom) is a concert pianist, vocalist and even sang with the Mo-Tabs as we call them, quilter, served three full time missions, works weekly in the temple, has five children and grandkids numbering in the 20's and has been married over 50 years! They also have at least 4 great-grandchildren. They are the most gracious hosts and we have had several amazing times in their home in Nevada. We always do a lot of laughing when we are with them. Good therapy! She and Read travel between all their kids just seeing how they can help out. I want to do that when we retire.

Here's Barbara with one of our favorite topics~Owen!

Barbara (Melissa's mom) has five really nice children, takes care of her mom full-time, is a retired kindergarten teacher, beautiful seamstress and business owner, amazing genealogist, has many beautiful grandchildren and has lived in several places including Saudi. She recently came and spent over two weeks with Chris and Missy's kids working day and night (I witnessed it myself) and always with a smile on her face and in complete control. It was her way of making sure Missy got to accompany Chris to Europe with his BYU student group. I was in awe of her service and her energy!

Janet (Robert's mom) is the mother of 12 children. She is amazingly organized and her home is immaculate. She cooks and bakes non-stop (or did when they were all home) and was always a few days ahead on her cooking. They had two big refrigerators and a basement set up like a store. She has 6 daughters and 5 living sons and all of them are delightfully gracious, spiritual and wonderful. I am not even sure how many grandchildren the have have now. One summer I think five grandsons were born to them. She has lived all over the world with Bryant's work taking them to Japan several times for years at a time, Belgium, Canada and here in the US. I cannot even comprehend her contribution to society~especially within the walls of all her own homes. It is amazing!

I said love at least seven time in this post...I really do love each of them!

3 comments:

girlsmama said...

What a neat post! I wish my mom felt the same about my MIL. Maybe someday. :)

Bonnie said...

Mary Jane said...Well Bonnie, I just sent you a e-mail telling how I loved your blog and then I went to check it out (which I had not done for 3-4 days) and Wow--there we are. What can I say--I did it backwards; should have looked first. At any rate, Thank you for the nice words you say therein; I'll try to do better at living up to them. It was fun to see the pictures of parents of your other two children's spouses. I know I had met Missy's mom once but not Robert's. They all seem to be wonderful families! It's late, so I'll write more later. RWS is waiting for me. Love, Mary Jane

Barbara said...

Such a sweet post, Bon.