Mother's day gifts

I had a real hard time with the fact that growing up my mom hated Mother's day. As I kid I always thought that meant that she hated being a mother. Now that I am a mom I understand better. I realize that on mother's day we tend to beat ourselves for all of our short comings and weaknesses. So I decided to make sure that I celebrated mother's day as a day where I celebrate the gift of being a mother. Yes it is the hardest job in the world. I realize that I will never be the mother of the year and hopefully my kids won't need too much therapy; but I still feel lucky everyday that I have been chosen to be the mother of my 2 adorable little boys. So all I ever want for Mother's day is something with handprints of my boys. They grow up just too dang fast to remember. Well, this year I decided to give that same gift to the mothers in my life. I got some rectangle vases (on sale I might add!) and had their handprints etched onto it. My life long friend and her husband own the company Artistic Reflections. All I had to do was make a handprint of my kids with regular ink and paper and Aaron did the rest! It turned out beautiful! I love it and wish that the pictures did it justice. Then I made these cute paper flowers. I had to mail my mom's but my MIL, GIL and Grandma will all get the full effect. I even had a vase etched for me and then called Josh and told him (since he knows all I want is hand prints) that I had the handprints covered! It will be a gift that I treasure for the rest of my life! (or until it gets broken- I know reality) Is it cheating when you get your gift yourself? My neighbor told me that she always gets her own mother's day gift because then she is never disapointed. I don't know but all I know is that I love it! (Good thing my mom doesn't read my blog- or it would spoil the suprise!) Thank you Tawna and Aaron for doing this for me last minute- especially since you are about to have that baby any second!