Mothers

I realize that yes this a late Mother's Day post but I just had to share a few thoughts. First off, I miss my Mom really bad right now. She just had a way of making everything right. She was the ultimate caring person. She always thought of others feelings, needs, wants. She was always there and she always had a wonderful listening ear and soft kind words that seemed to make everything seem "okay" in life. In the past week I had a sister and a brother have their first children. It is a happy time, but at the same time I find myself really yearning for the things that my Mom has missed out on. I like to picture her holding those special spirits in her arms before they came down. I'm sure she did. She loved babies!! My sister Catherine had twins and I'm sure that my Mom yearns to be here for her physically as much as my sister Catherine yearns for her too. I find myslef wishing I could be as good and as supportive as my Mom would have been, yet I know I'm not. My Mom was everything! But at the same time, I find myself so grateful these past few days for the bond of sisterhood that my Mom gave me. That I was lucky enough to have 4 awesome sisters, not to mention sister-in-laws and friends and a spectacular mother in law who help nuture me through my "rough" spots. I think in those situations my Mom has personally helped send those people to me. My mom use to always say something to me that I will never forget "friends come and go but you will always have your siblings". I realize the truth to this more and more as I get older and I am thankful for the times that my Mom made me drag along a younger sister with my friends in my jam packed suburban, or when she made me play with a sister even though I was told old to play with barbies, or when she made me tend my younger sibilings and walk their crying behinds around the family room to sooth them. My Mom taught me pretty much everything, but most of all how to try to be a mother. I am so so thankful for those around me who truly love and care for me and accept me for who I am these days. Life has had many turns and roundabouts for me in the past few years and I see that the hand of my Mom is so strong in life sending precious souls my way, more than I ever had before. I truly cherish each one of my "sisters" whether related or not for the care that you give me. And I am thankful every day that I was raised by one class act Mom!

On another note, Mother's Day is usually very built up in our minds as mothers. We invision beautiful breakfasts in bed with fresh fruit and waffles, as well as flowers and maybe even a whirlwind trip we could get whisked away on. But rarely do these things happen for me Mother's Day (actually I should say these things have NEVER happened for me on Mother's day! lol) But this year wasn't even about the gifts or the dishes that my husband did or DIDN'T do, but about the cute cards and thoughts my kids gave me. I was truly spoiled by them! Maren can barely write, but did her best job on drawing a picture and writing her name. And then a recieved the most darling heartfelt letter from Matthew. It is truly one of my most prized possessions. I have to share it with you all(although I have correced the spelling. lol):

Dear Mom-
I love all you do. You alwaysed cared about me. You raised me and Maren and Will with lovliness. You were always there when I had a problem and when you weren't there I thought of how strong and courageous you were. You always helped me and cared about me and when I was scared you always came. You always told me it was okay. And when you had fun with me I had joy. When I was stung by a bee you helped me. I love how nice you are and when we need help we can look up to you.
Love-
Matthew

I only hope that someday I can live up to all that he thinks of me. What a sweetie! Thoughts and letters like these are the true presents of motherehood for me!

Cookie Dough

Happy Birthday to my sweet Maren Elizabeth today! I can't believe that it has been 5 years since I had her. I can still remember my sweet baby girl. I will never forget how blessed I felt to have a baby girl. I felt so lucky to even have kids, let alone to get the opportunity to have my own little girl doll. I can still remember dressing her, putting bows in her hair and rocking her for hours. I remember with Maren it didn't feel like a burden at all to get up with her in the night and feed her, like it had with Matthew my first. She was a dream! She would just sit still on my lap for hours and watch the world go by. She could still do this today. She is funny, sweet, hilarious, girlie, happy. She loves to sing and dance. She LOVES to put on make up and do anything that I am doing. She loves to get dressed up, put on perfume, read books and cuddle. She is everything I could have ever wanted in a daughter. What joy she brings to my life. I am forever indebted to a Heavenly Father who has blessed me with so much, especially Maren!! Love you Cookie Dough!

AI Finale

So here we are again, one of the saddest times of the year. When those, who are as pathetic as I and only have basic cable, go into a mourning period for all the shows we have loved and lost due to the summer season. I will sorely miss AI and all the joy that it brought to me. Particularly at the beginning when I laughed at the exspense of others who sing no better than me, but were dumb enough to go on tv and do it. Ahhh the memories!
Tonight we learned a few things. First off we have learned 2 important bits of information about Paula. One was that she just returned from her own personal bahamas trip (ie Mystic tan) and wowed us with her orange skin against the shiny glow of her green top. Which leads us to the second important fact about Paula, that she does not wear a bra. Another important tidbit or lesson if you will, was that even though Kara Laguardia thinks that she is a songwriter, she proved us all wrong by writing one of the worst/most cheesiest finale numbers we have witnessed. I think it was about hurricane Katrina or something. Both of the competitors pretty much sucked it up on that song. But I have to say that there also must have been something wrong with the mics because both of them were really hard to hear over the accompniment.
One of my favorite happenings of the night was that they ACTUALLY had a FAIR coin toss in which Adam lost and could not continue on with his rigged last place singing. Of course he had to bring back for all his EMO friends "Mad Mad World" Of which I probably only know 2 people who enjoyed it, my nephew Josh and my friend Denise. Hmmm...we'll forgive them. When he finished another favorite Marenism for me was when Paula was giving her "props" to Adam and telling him how great he looked, Maren yelled out "she should have told him how girlish he looks". Such wise words from a 4 year old. One of my favorite outfit moments came for me with his final song though where I couldn't decide if his jeans were "acid wash" or if they were silver. Very thought provoking. He did okay with the 2nd performance until he lost me with the tongue thrusts again. I have come to grips that Adam will win American Idol, but I still don't have to like it.
I have to say though, I was impressed with Kris tonight. He gave us a good show. I think I caught some hope when he actually sang his first song at the PIANO instead of the guitar. And I thought he won round 1 for sure with his song. He did MUCH better than I thought he would. I actually really enjoyed the second song too and he avoided SOME of his weird mannerisms by sitting down, but still a side singer. There were points tonight which I wasn't sure who was annoying me more. But I knew that I had to let Kris annoy me less than Adam or I would have turned to the dark side. Kris was okay on the last song but again, what can you do with something that is crappy at best to begin with?
All in all, it's been a great ride and I'm sure we will have many more days together seeing Adam on the Today Show, Regis and Kelly etc. to annoy us some more. I can hardly wait! And now my blog will go back to regular scheduled Stone family programming. Unless by some miracle Kris wins, where I will have to right a post just for the ways I love him for beating Adam!

AI Final 3

I always look forward to the judges picking a song for contestants because usually it ends up being the bomb. Like what most of America might want them to sing. Tonight, was not the case. First off....who else noticed AGAIN that Adam went last!! And also that Simon was picking the song...very interesting and yes rigged!

I thought Danny did a great job on his first song considering no one has ever heard of that song and/or Terence Trent Darby unless you were in jr. high in the 80's like me. But glad to know that Paula got a good dance out of it and probably pretended to be at a night club in her glory days. And I don't know what they are saying about his dancing, cause I think he is fine. I LOVED his second song. GREAT choice and he sounded awesome! What more can you say about that.

Okay Kris I thought was pretty good on his first song. Although he does bug me in ways, I was at least impressed that I think the guy has talent. He can do more than one instrument and sing at the same time. I was LOVING it when Simon slammed Kara for her outrageous comments. Just so you know, I believe that she is also in on the plot of rigging the show. She seems to only have good comments and amazement faces saved up for Adam. Interesting...She bugged me the WHOLE show tonight! You know you are a sad case Kara when you make Paula almost look more refined.... I couldn't believe she would pick a song and then rip it to shreds like he was the idiot! HELLOOOOO. I have to say for the second song though...he lost me on guitar. Whenever he pulls the guitar out I want to run out of the room because his whole dancing, side singing, presence with the guitar bugs me. And it again reminds me why I don't want to see him make an album, because I would have to endure more of that action. The song was okay if you closed your eyes and didn't watch.

Now for the last and final annoyer of the night Adam. First, let's discuss the acid wash shirt that he wore during his first song. I haven't seen a "denim" shirt in many a year. And acid wash at that. And showing his freshly shaven baren chest. Yay!! (BARF) And then to sing "One" and so ROYALLY destroy it with his lack of any melody resembling the original song and his tongue thrusts. That was the most Whitney Houston version of "One" that I have ever heard. I hope U2 was pissed that they ever let him give it a go!! And all his smarmy cheessy condescendingness at the end of it to America like "do you guys know how incredible the lyrics are? Don't just focus on my awesome singing" Wow, thanks Adam! And who else felt like that was really not "fair play". U2 vs. Terrence Trent Darby hmm...I wonder which America will like better? Darn you American Idol for rigging the show once again! And my only happiness came at the end of the night when he was finished giving us his best rockettes version of "Crying" which wasn't all that impressive at all. I wonder which he studies more during the week, his sultry looks and cat like walking, or the tongue thrusts?? AHHH please America don't let him win!! Save yourselves!! At least we have one more week before the final blow.

AI Week 9 - Rock the House

I was pretty excited for Rock Week on AI. Mostly I was just excited to see Slash and if he would really hate the cheesiness of AI or not. I thought he was totally funny cause he was not overly excited about contestants in anyway. But could you just believe if you were Kris rocking out with him... awesome! And I also wonderered why he didn't call out anyone for not singing Guns N Roses, cause that would have been awesome. So, once again, I'm sure you are not shocked I was TOTALLY annoyed with Adam. That was just about the most literal gay rock performance I have ever seen. And by gay I mostly mean lame!! I was very unimpressed with his Whole Lotta Love and it was Whole lotta annoying! Does no one else notice that he is screaming the whole time? Which generally I like, but not the way he is doing it with the whole tongue issue. And then later Danny gets flamed for screaming. What the? And did anyone else notice his head tick when he cocks it to the side to show his bad self attitude, but really it just shows to me that he is once again a total drama freak. Why can't he just sing??!!! And I think that was the first time that Adam has ever been first. Although once again I think they were rigging the show so that they could make everyone look "less" rock that followed. Which isn't hard because no one else is all about the make up and hair and sassiness, even including Allison! I also thought that the duet with he and Allison was totally boring! What was up with Kara and Randy totally in awe and thinking they should cut an album with their duet... UGH! Enough of the Adam fest already!!
Anyway, I liked Allison last night and I was hoping that she would rock the house. Before she went on I just kept praying that she would not sing Heart and thank goodness she went with Janet. I have never heard that song, but I really dug her version of it. I also would have loved to see her sing Piece of My Heart. I think the judges were right on that. She and Danny are pretty much my only hopes now to win. But both of them are still really talented so hopefully America will look past Adam's smoke and mirrors and see Allison and Danny.
I liked Danny and Kris' duet. There harmonies were dope dawgs! Although I did think Kris pretty much was knocked out on the solo part by Danny. Still enjoyable though. And did anyone else think Danny looked super hot (said Pedro style) during the duet? I was loving the red shirt, and yes scarily enough even the chain necklace thingies. How could I get Dave to dress like that? He does have a gold chain from his mission... hmm...
I liked Kris jam session but it just showed how weak he really is vocally compared to the others. And once again he was back to annoy me with his guiatarisms with the whole dancing and facial expressions. Ugh! I'm afraid he is the one to go this week most likely.
I didn't like Danny's solo performance that much but he is just a good singer. He should have picked a different Aerosmith song cause I think he was in the right direction. He just seems like and overall great dude!
It would be the bomb if Adam was in the final 2, but probably won't happen. So everyone better start voting so he is at least not in the final 2..