my mom turned 60 in December!!

My mom is a wonderful outstanding spectacular mom so we couldn't just let her 60th birthday go by without doing something for her.

So, I got on Pinterest then chatted with a friend about doing a special gift for my mom. We ended up with "60 years of memories". I emailed, called, facebooked, and wrote to any and all of my mom's friends that I could and asked them to send their favorite memory of my mom. The response was amazing (thank you to all of you who added your memories to this)! We got letters, postcards, memories, Sally quotes, and poems. I put them all in airmail envelopes individually so that we had 60 envelopes for her to open. Jan (my MIL) had this cool vintagey box that we were able to use and the envelopes fit perfectly!

As my dad and I talked about this gift in the days leading up to the big day, he mentioned "she's definately going to need kleenex for this gift". So, the yellow gift bag contained a brand new box of tissue. She opened that first and the look she gave me said that it crossed her mind that I had completely lost it and was wrapping up kleenex as a birthday gift!!!

Here is the decorated dining room. She wasn't allowed out of her room until we were done decorating. Riley was hanging out with her for a bit but once he found out that Grandpa and I were playing with balloons, Grammy was forgotten in favor of kicking balloons all around the house. It actually helped us decorate in a "random" pattern!

So we had this fantastic meal that was all of my mom's favorite foods (and she wasn't allowed to help prepare any of them), then we settled in for the real deal.... the lemon meringue pie. Anyone who knows my mom well knows that she always gets lemon meringue pie on her birthday and it is her absolute favorite! My dad usually buys an extra pie or 2 just for her to eat the next week or so!

(In this picture it looks as though Casey is trying to help blow the candles out!)

Then it was GIFT TIME!!

She had more gifts than just the box but I only got pictures of the box.

To say it lightly- she was SO surprised and overwhelmed by the gift of 60 memories from family and friends.

The memories made her laugh....

... and tear up (cue tissue box)

We all had a great time listening to some of the memories as she delved into the first few. Brad had been able to fly in that evening for her birthday (and Christmas) which was an extra bonus for the night. Also in attendance were Casey, Greg, Jan & Randy, Garrett, Riley, my dad, and myself .

She told me the next day that she was up very late that night reading each memory, remembering that time, praying for the person, and cherishing dear friends near and far.

a HUGE thank you to all of you who participated in making this gift happen. Thank you for loving my mom and for telling her while you can.

Happy Birthday to the best mom on the planet!