Happy Birthday Mom and Dad!

It's my mom's birthday today and my dad's on Wednesday so I thought I would share some wonderful memories about my parents! First of all, Happy Birthday Mom and Dad!!! I love you both!!

These memories are just a few examples of how amazing my parents really are. They reminded me of how very loved and blessed I am to have both of them.

Here we go:

This is really not a memory but a story I've heard many times. If you don't know, I'm a twin. I have a twin sister. The funny thing is my parents had no idea they were having twins until I was born and the doctor said "Another one is coming!" I must admit, I love my birth story! Anyways, I used to love to look at my baby book when I was younger. There's one picture of my mom and me. My mom is holding me and she looks so incredibly happy. It's the first thing you notice in the picture. The second thing is how very red I look. Seriously. I look like a beet. That picture always humbled me. Looking at my mom's face I could never really understand that kinda love. And you know what? My mom has never loved me less. Thank you mom for loving so much. I love you right back.

Dad I haven't forgotten you! When my sister and I were born we both were sick. But my sister had it worse. She had to stay in the hospital longer than I did. There's a picture of her in a machine and a stuffed animal next to her that Dad got for her. It was a little elephant. In fact, my sister may still have that elephant somewhere. I remember when I was younger I joked that I never got a stuffed animal when I was born. Now of course, I was completely joking but the next day Dad bought me a stuffed animal. I thought it was such a sweet thing to do. Thank you Daddy! You have this kindness and tenderness about you that I have always admired. Thank you for loving me so unconditionally. I love you back!

Through out the years my parents were ALWAYS there for us. This is not an exaggeration. They were at all our activities and got really involved. My dad became a soccer referee (and coach one time) when my sisters and I started playing soccer. My mom brought the oranges for half time break. She also taught us how to play piano. I can still hear her yelling at me from the kitchen that I got a note wrong. (It was a little annoying yes but it shows she cares.)

Both my mom and dad took each  of us on mom and dad dates. I have no idea if this is weird or not but looking back I think it was just another way to spend time with us individually. I really loved those dates. It made me feel special. And it was unusual to have time alone with one parent. We would go get ice cream or some kind of snack and just talked. I don't even really remember what we talked about. But I do remember how it made me feel. Those dates made me feel loved and special. I don't think I could even express that feeling into words. It was just there, at the bottom of my heart, that beloved feeling, sitting there, warming up my heart. Thank you mom and dad for showing us that love.

I also remember my parents throwing really great birthday parties for us. It was always a sleep over for any of our friends we wanted to invite. We always got TONS of junk food, grilled hamburgers and chocolate cake. We would play outside until the sun went down. Then played board games until we couldn't keep out eyes open anymore. I don't know how my parents dealt with that many little girls running around their house. But they did, year after year. And a side note, how did my older sister deal with that?? No clue. :)

My parents also did a million little things to show me how much I was loved. Mom has cooked countless meals for us including making lunches for us for school. She even wrote notes and put them in our lunches. I really loved those....like really loved them. Sometimes all they said was "I love you." Mom did I ever tell you how much I loved them? I always get embarrassed with expressing deep emotion which is so incredibly dumb because life is too short. I loved those mom. They were awesome! My mom also taught endless amount of piano students throughout the years. You know what she did with that money? She saved it for us. Every year that money bought our school clothes. It also started saving funds. Now it was never thousands of dollars or anything but we didn't have lots of money to spare yet my mom still wanted to do it. I think that's pretty amazing. Thanks mom.

I also remember the tiring journeys with Dad to the orthodontist in Memphis. I remember we had to wake up really early, like 3:00am to get there on time. Dad drove both there and back. Just for our crooked teeth. I remember Dad even picking me up and carrying me to my bed one time. Thank you Dad for caring about my teeth and going on all those very tiring trips for us. Dad also drove us over many vacations and holidays. I remember when I was little I used to worry that we all fell asleep and Dad had to stay awake the whole time and drive. I would try to stay awake with him so he wasn't alone, which I usually failed. I also remember trying to stare at all the other lights of the cars passing by us on the other side. I thought that was something you had to do if you were driving at night. That's so weird. Dad, thank you for tirelessly driving your family so many times. I am so thankful to have a Dad like you. You were always there for us yet also worked full time as well as part-time soccer referee. Thank you for putting us first like you did.

Oh and who can forget my twin and I deciding to play viola and violin? One workshop in elementary school and we had decided to do it. I'm sure you both wanted to pull your hair out. :) You bought both of us instruments and added practice sessions, rehearsals and concerts to the list of things you had to drive us to and participate in. Neither one of you ever tried to discourage us. Thank you for supporting us like that.

In fact you both did that for us in any adventure we chose to do. You raised daughters that chose to take abnormal life paths. And I think that is a good thing. Thank you for letting us do that.

I want to be there for both of you in the future. I have no idea what is going to happen but what I do know is I want to be able to be there for both of you like you were there for me. Both of you mean so much to me and I love you. There are a thousand other memories of how you've shown your love but that would be an endless blog!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful, loving, amazing, awesome, caring, talented, cute parents!!
I LOVE YOU!!!!!

Sincerely your weird daughter,

Amy