Birthday Memories, Part II

This has been an exhausting 12 days, and I am way behind in finishing the birthday celebration stories. I won't feel complete until I do this post. The reason for the exhaustion is that Kristen developed a terrible horrible infection and was literally in bed, sleeping much of the time, for over a week. She was so sad to have missed all of the festivities, which is why I had the kids in my care. They were all with us for 12 days and nights, and I began taking them to visit her for a few minutes at a time after about a week. They were so good, but this grandma is tired. More about that in the next post.

Mom told somebody during the week-end that she only remembered ever having two birthday parties in her life. I think the reason for some of this is that her birthday is so close to Mother's Day and they got blended quite often. But Mom enjoyed every minute of this special week-end for her and is still enjoying the memories of all the surprises we planned.

Sunday morning everyone was sitting front and center in our church sanctuary. It was so fun to see everyone out there as some of us were in the choir. When we were teen-agers, my sister, oldest brother, and I were in a quartet with a good friend. We decided it would be fun to sing one of the songs we used to sing back in the day. Our youngest brother was coerced into singing with us, and DC took the place of our missing brother, who couldn't make it from England (we were so glad his wife was able to be here). My brothers were so goofy during rehearsal that I wasn't sure we could make it through the song without getting the giggles.

We had so much fun singing this old song, Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul. I wish I had a way to post the video --


After church we got together for a quick lunch at my sister's place, then headed back to the church to decorate for the second party, attended by many church friends. I don't have lots of pictures of the decorations, because I was too busy doing the work. But we had round tables with yellow tablecloths and yellow long-stemmed roses on each table, along with 5x7 copies of the pictures I shared with you here. It was fun to see all the interest in her past.

When we were doing all the set-up, my SIL, Morning Glory, had the brilliant idea to bring the play pen up from the nursery. I didn't think they even made play pens any more. It was a life saver, and even kept the big girls happy!




Mom's dress was her birthday gift from my sis and me. One of the young women in our church is working on flower arranging as a career, so we asked her to do our floral arrangements for us.


I had found these dresses for all 4 girls at Sam's awhile back, and this was the perfect time to debut them.


We had such a good turn-out and it was such fun. I was so thankful for all of the help with the babies --


There were so many pictures being taken. Here is what ended up on my camera. This is everyone in the family who was privileged to be there.

Here is a shot of all the grands/spouses who were able to come.

There are literally hundreds of pictures being taken by dozens of cameras. I wish I had all of them! Don't worry, I wouldn't think of posting all of them, even if I had them.

Thanks for joining in the celebration --