Happy Mothers Day...Continued

So, for almost the last year I have been working on a scrapbook to be given as a present to my Mom of my sister Laurie's life. For those of you who don't know of Laurie, she had Down's Syndrome and passed away last year rather unexpectedly. She was and is the favorite of us all. She was the oldest in my family, which is very rare. They are usually the youngest and quite a bit younger than the rest of the family. It's also really rare because my parents had 5 relatively "normal" children after they had Laurie. (We are all a bit crazy.) Anyhoo. I finally gave it to my Mom for Mother's Day. It was so fun to see her reaction. It honestly was the best present I have ever given. Very self fulfilling. (Is it bad that giving the present brought me so much joy?) Not only did I love looking at my sweet sister's face while working on the book but the joy and happiness on my Mom's face was so worth all the effort. My Mom will probably kill me but here is her reaction to the book:

Here is a picture of the group of us in attendance (minus Michael who was taking the picture):

We were all hovering around the book and looking at the pictures while my Mom told us stories of the pictures and the background behind them. Some of her baby pictures I was clueless about the history. I left the journaling blank so my Mom could fill it in. She has the most beautiful handwriting I have ever seen. I, unfortunately, inherited my Dad's handwriting. I am planning on scanning the book once my Mom fills in the journaling portion of the book and then giving a copy to all of my brothers and sisters for birthdays. Everyone is really excited. I also had the idea to email all of my extended family and ask them to send me their favorite memories of Laurie to include in the book. It was so much fun to read how much Laurie was adored and admired by so many people. We sat around and read the stories people sent. We laughed and cried. It was so great. It brought back all of the reasons why Laurie is so special to us. I am so glad I was able to do this for my Mom. Love you Mom! I hope you had a great Mothers Day!