Surprise!!

As many of you may recall, last year my mom had her mastectomy on her 58th birthday. Obviously, a lot has happened over the last year so Alison, Denise and I wanted to do something extra special this year for mom's birthday. We decided to have a surprise brunch with a number of her close friends. Now, let me just say that surprising MY mom is NOT an easy task. She likes to know exactly what is going on and continues to question and question until she knows all the details (I can say this - because I am just like her! Ha!).

The girls and I headed up on Tuesday to spend the week with her. My sister came up on Thursday - but mom didn't know anything about that. We just told mom we would have lunch somewhere on Friday but she could decide where. She decided she wanted to stay in Morton so my dad and maybe my uncle Mike could join us. All week long she was asking me and Denise (my sil) if we would rather eat at Basta's or Ruby Tuesdays. I think she asked us multiple times a day - and we didn't care because we knew we weren't actually going there.

We were having the brunch at my grandma's house so my sister was going to head straight there on Thursday to get started on preparations. However, my mom made plans for us (the girls, me, Max, Denise, Contessa, Alex, my dad, my grandma, my uncle and herself) to eat Monical's pizza at my grandma's house on Thursday evening. Obviously, this totally threw things off because we could start setting up and we didn't want mom to see Alison. So here are the rest of us eating yummy pizza together and Alison just ran some errands and then hung out alone at Max and Denise's house until we were done.

Then on Friday after everything was ready, I ran to mom and dad's (I stayed at my grandma's with Daphne while the big girls stayed with my parents) to get my mom and Norah, Lucy and Contessa. I had dropped Daphne off at a friend of Denise's - and just told mom that Abby said I could drop her off early. The plan was that I was going to tell mom that Grandma wanted to ride with us to lunch but she wasn't quite ready so we needed to go back by her house to get her. Norah wanted to see the "Surprise" so she was going to just out of the car with my mom and run up to the door with her. That was the plan. When I got to my mom's, she had just gotten a phone call that her car - which was being worked on - was ready and mom wanted me to run her to get her car and then she wanted to meet us at the restaurant. Now my grandma lives about 4 blocks from my mom so I tried to convince her that we should get grandma first. Since I was driving, we just went there, but my mom was not overly happy with that because she thought grandma still wouldn't be ready. I told her to run in and get grandma. She headed to the garage instead of the front door so I had to shout something like, "Mom, I think I forgot to lock the front door. Can you just go in that door and check?" I am pretty sure she rolled her eyes at me - but she did. Thank goodness because everyone was standing right inside the front door!

Waiting to get the party started!

Grandma set and decorated the table.

Finishing touches

. . . and the "surprise!"

Mom and my Aunt Kathy - mom kept referring to her as her private duty nurse. Kathy spent many nights at the hospital with mom so dad could go home to get some sleep. Kathy went to many appointments with mom and really took care of her as mom tried to gain strength and do normal daily activities.

Waiting for mom to come in the door

Party guests

Singing "happy birthday" and opening presents

Dad stopped by on his lunch to check in on the party. The grand-daughters were obviously excited to see him!!

5 of the 7 grandkids (Ryan and Will couldn't be there)

Lucy, Norah, Daphne, Contessa and Alex

I am thankful for. . .

my parents. I spent some time with them . . . all by myself . . .over the weekend. I went to Morton for a baby shower and the girls stayed home!! That doesn't happen often but it was nice to have a couple of nights away. Mom and I did a little shopping at some of the little shops in Morton.

(ignore the big circle of light in the middle of the picture)

I am also thankful that my mom is doing well and getting stronger everyday.

Power of Prayer

As mentioned before, I firmly believe in the power of prayer so I am asking all you fellow bloggers to pray for my mom for the next few days. She is having her mastectomy and reconstructive surgery tomorrow. Surgery starts at 8 and will potentially be a 6 hour surgery with 2 hours in recovery. Please pray for peace for Mom and the rest of the family. Please pray for wisdom for the doctors. Please pray for speedy, painless recovery.

Such the Slacker!!

Wow! I am clearly going through a blogging dry spell!

A lot has gone on in the last several weeks - not all good stuff, some that is really hard to talk about, and lots of the normal everyday school/play stuff.

The not good stuff - I'll start by mentioning that in the last several weeks all 3 girls have been to the doctor and/or ER. Norah and Daphne have ear infections and Norah and Lucy have been wheezing - which means TONS of breathing treatments! Daphne has the same icky cough, but I have had the doctor listen to Daphne multiple times and so far she isn't wheezing!

The hard to talk about stuff - My mom was diagnosed in early January with breast cancer. A lot has happened since then - multiple surgeries already and now she is gearing up for a mastectomy the end of the month. This all came to a shock to us and to the doctors, but while I know this is all hard for her, she is an incredible example to others. Her faith is strong - I have heard her say several times that she knows God has a plan and she is trusting in Him to give her strength.

The normal, everyday stuff - School is going well. Norah is doing great! We started a new math curriculum (I had put together my own kindergarten curriculum, but we had finished it by Christmas) called Singapore Math. We are doing level 1A - I love it so far!! Lots of hands on stuff and a few workbook pages (which Norah enjoys as long as it isn't everyday). We just finished up a bunch of winter/snow activities and we are now learning about the human body right now - about a 5 week unit.

Lucy has all of the sudden learned all of her letters. I'm sure this had a lot to do with it, but she also is with us when Norah does school. I think she is picking up a lot more than I realized!!

Daphne is a spit-fire. She is full of life - laughing and screeching at her sisters all day long!! She still prefers to crawl but she can walk. She will walk across the room if she thinks no one is watching her, but as soon as she notices someone watching she falls to the ground and crawls. She has been a little bit of a mess since she doesn't feel well. She wants to be held constantly - which I am trying to take advantage of while she is little, but my house is falling apart at the seams!!

I have been making aprons like crazy recently. Several people have contacted me about buying them - I love it!! I am contemplating starting at etsy store. Hmmm.

This weekend is going to be sort of low-key. Norah is cheering tomorrow and we have some projects to do but otherwise we are hoping to just have some family time!!