WHEW! We've been planning a surprise bday party for my mom since January... we finally pulled it off yesterday... and it went REALLY well if I can brag about it for a sec... lol She was definitely surprised... which is not an easy thing to do... she's involved in absolutely everything all the time... and we talk about EVERYTHING... so to keep anything from her was torture... Although I think she may kill dad... it was all his idea... LOL She didn't want anybody to know how old she was... she threatened pain of death if we did anything... but that was after we'd already sent out invites... LOL oops...
My mom is one awesome lady. Some of my earliest memories are of us baking cookies and going up and down the road to give plates of cookies to random neighbors.
She has a heart for other people... and she generally shows it by feeding them... lol We have had SO many people at our house for food.
When I was in about 6th grade, we started doing youth nights at our house. My brother wanted to have some of his friends come to the house... so they started coming EVERY weekend. Sometimes they'd only stay one night... sometimes... they'd stay a week... lol it just depended on what was going on.
At one point... we had 12-14 boys all my brother's age hanging out at the house... and me... joy... tormented much? lol
But you know... it was so much fun. They came, we fed them, they ran all over the farm doing all kinds of crazy stuff... and it was a type of ministry... we not only got to minister to all those boys... but we also got to minister to their families... (there were times some of the girls came over... but definitely not as often... and mom HATED those times... cause then we had the battle of the sexes going on... we were either fighting... or some of the girls were flirting... and that REALLY freaked mom out... so we didn't mix very often...)
Some of those boys still come back. They're grown up... some with families of their own... and my parents are like just another set of parents.
My friend Rob has a girlfriend who has a daughter about 3 years old... If she could... my mom would take that kid in a heartbeat... in her mind... she's like a granddaughter. (which takes some pressure off my brother and I to get married so she can have grandkids... lol)
Mom also makes a ton of quilts... last year, she put together like 20 something quilts to give away to some of the kids who were coming to youth nights still... most of them were college kids that we either go to church with or friends my brother and I met in college...
As we got older... so did the youth group... But nothing's really changed... my mom still feeds everyone who walks in the door... and we still have all kinds of people fill our house.
We live smack dab in the middle of nowhere... but we were talking about it one night... and we counted somewhere in the mid-20's I think... of different countries that have been represented in our house at different times. middle of nowhere! and people from all over the world have ended up in our living room or at our table. Is that not awesome!?
So yesterday... mom turned 50... and we celebrated her half-century by inviting people to come feed her for a change... it was one dinner that she didn't have to do any work for! lol It was a GREAT day... So many people!
Somebody told her yesterday that she truly is the embodiment of Proverbs 31. (She does do a little bit of everything around here... from cooking, to quilts, to clothes, to yard, to building furniture and laying concrete... LOL)
I am SO blessed to have this woman as mother... and I hope that in some way I can be at least half the woman she is in her ministry to other people...
Love you mom! :)
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