Happy Birthday to My Mom!

Thurs is my mom's bday! We don't always see eye to eye, but I know she has my back no matter what..and I've got hers. She's an awesomesauce lady even though I have no idea how she's so short considering our whole family is taller.. haha.. I used to pick her up and spin her around for fun. She didn't love that. I was definitely a challenge to deal with at times in my life, so this woman gets a LOT of kudos.

After my dad died, she worked a second job (she's a teacher) in the evenings to help make ends meet..(and when I could work, I worked too (in high school)). Yet, no matter what, at every swim meet...every football game (I was on the pom squad), there she was...cheering me on. She let me get away with enough to feel like I had freedom, but kept a watchful eye on my activities and ensured I made good choices (read we had screaming fights where I almost got my car taken away repeatedly for doing something stupid or jerky or basically teenage dramaish).

Her favorite show used to be Jeopardy (think it's the Apprentice now) and she's always had beagle dogs. No matter how many times they HOWL with the sirens and eat everything in sight, she swears by the breed.... *sigh* haha... She used to march around the house with me singing "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" carrying sticks/canes/whatever we could find.. and we'd change it to "born on the 3rd of July" b/c hello.. that's my birthday. She helped with Camp Fire, even though she's seriously one of the least craft people I know.. haha... But she tries. That's something. It's weird to think of our parents getting older, right? Yeah. It is.

And she doesnt know this.. and doesn't read my blog, but her boyfriend (who she only calls her "friend"...even after over a year) invited me to dinner with them tomorrow night as a surprise! Cute. :) So, Happy Birthday to MOM! (My dad was a photag.. hence the life size photos of Jax as a child in the den. I purposely cut them out). These are from Christmas last year.. Self timer-awesome. The dogs didn't behave.

Her beagle, Beau, is abooooout 100 year old.. or more like 14.... haha.. :) Gracie annoys the hell out of him keeps him young when she's over there.