Mom's Shop Til You Drop Birthday

My mom buys clothes every couple of years if that. And that's if we make her and have my sister Susan take her one day and do her majic. She used to be a personal shopper for Nordstroms. Honestly, the reason she never shops for herself is that she is so selfless. She's too busy doing things and shopping for other that she won't take the time to do it herself.

I still have clothes from high school. Maybe I get it from my mom...not the selfless part...the part of not being a shopper. But guess what....turns out shopping without three kids is ACTUALLY fun! The goal was to get Mom clothes and with all of us girls we knew we could do it. We literally went to over 20 clothing stores and looked at every single purse in the Chandler mall. Of course we made a stop at See's to get a pound of chocolate to keep our energy up during all that shopping. A lady at one of those carts in the middle of the mall saw us stealing chocolates out of the box as we were walking through the mall and she said she knew a lady who ate a whole box of See's chocolate by herself in two days. I mean that's crazy talk...who does that? :)

Pedicures for the girls.

Later we met up with the others at Pei Wei.

I thought I would get so much rest being kid-free but I came home exhausted. Late nights talking. One night Mark, Shelly, and I stayed up til 4am talking then woke up bright and early to make mom breakfast in bed for her birthday.

A family tradition to have fruit with candles in it to make the birthday girl a wish.

Outside mom's room...

Crowning mom queen for the day. She cried all day...a happy cry.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Being home was so good for me and brought be back to my roots (like Scarlet in Gone with the Wind..haha). There's something special about being home with your siblings without all the spouses and kids. Don't take that the wrong way...but there's just something intimate in having just the people you grew up with you there. It's hard to explain but I really feel like it's something everyone should do with their brothers and sisters at some point. Not all of my siblings were there but it was still nice. There's a lot going on in my family right now so it was nice to talk things over and to recommit to being there for each other.

P.S. I know this is a long post but I am trying to be better at our family journaling...