MOPS Mondays!

From the time I began attending MOPS in September of 2013, I eagerly looked forward to each and every MOPS Monday. The first time I attended I took a 13-day-old baby with me. My table was a fantastic help to me - they helped me tote all of her stuff from our table to our rooms when we broke off into discussion groups, eagerly held my baby for me so that I could fully attend to the speaker, or even just so that I could eat my breakfast! Every part of MOPS has been a blessing to me - fellowshipping with other moms, having a nice, yummy, hot breakfast each morning (I'm easy to please), delicious coffee (told ya - I'm easy to please!), speakers who have always challenged me, informed me, and definitely blessed me with their words in regards to my role as a Christian wife and a Christian mommy, and so much more. It was sad to say good-bye, but luckily I will see many of the same faces next year. I wish I had thought to take a picture of my group.

Anyways, I received unexpected gifts today that just further proved the blessing that MOPS is to me:

My sweet mentor mom gave each of us Laura Story's CD, Blessings, and told us she wanted to do it because each one of us has been such a blessing to her. I hope she knows how much of a blessing she's been to me. She always sends the sweetest, "thinking of you" e-mails! When Audrey was little, my mentor mom was always one of the ladies who would hold Audrey for me so that I could eat breakfast while it was still hot. It really is those little things that count in the biggest ways.

Our discussion group leader makes kitchen scrubbers that can go in your dishwasher! That way, you don't have a gross dishrag sitting out all the time - just wash the scrubber when you wash your dishes, and then it's clean again!

Last, but certainly not least (this one is probably my favorite), when I went to pick up Audrey from the nursery today, her sweet MOPPETS workers had done a cute craft with them for us!

I can't say enough good things about the MOPPETS workers. They are 2 sweet older ladies who just loved on Audrey for 3 hours so that I could have a little "mom" time. When she was really little, I would usually pick her up and they would be sitting in a rocking chair with her just holding her and rocking her, and loving on her. Now that she's bigger, mobile, and totally uninterested in sitting and rocking, they played with her, took her on stroller rides around the church, somehow usually managed to get a 20-30 minute nap in her (which is ridiculously unusual for her when she's in the church nursery), and always had a cute story for me of something she did that day. Today's story was: Audrey was sitting on the floor playing with some toys, and one of the workers started playing with another baby and got the baby to laugh. Audrey started laughing (even though nobody was doing anything to her!), so the MOPPET lady included Audrey in the game, and told me how much Audrey was just belly-laughing throughout the whole thing! The worker said she'd never heard a baby laugh so hard. It just makes me smile knowing that, while I'm away having some "mommy" time, Audrey is being well-attended to, and having a great time herself!

I will miss my MOPS Mondays, but I'm on the steering committee for next year and we do have several meetings throughout the summer which I'm fine with. I'll be excited to serve in a leadership position and hopefully be a blessing to someone else next year like I feel so many women were to me this year.