mom's birthday. and the loss of a grandparent.

on february 14, my mom turned 45 years old. it seems hard to believe because i can remember when she was my age (weird). in fact ... i'm only 4 years away from being the age she was when my 15 year old sister was born! she had to work the night of her birthday, but two of her close friends brought her a cake and gifts, and we had a mini birthday party of sorts at the pool hall. on our way to muskogee, we picked up the birthday cake that lindsay and justin had ordered from ann's bakery. travis and i hung out with everyone at the pool hall and then made our way back home.

the next day we met everyone in muskogee at a restaurant that my parents both really like. the original plan had been to go to eufala, but mom decided that she didn't want to go. we met for lunch and then went back to mom and dad's to open presents and eat cake.

the cake was actually done up to look like a box of long stemmed roses. it is something that had been given to my mom years and years ago, and she always talks about it.

{in fact, she tried to have one made for my 16th birthday party, but it turned out to only be a regular sheet cake with roses on the top and my name misspelled. i remember how frustrated and disappointed she had been. justin and i discovered that ann's bakery makes the rose box cakes and had planned for some time that we would have to get one for mom}.

we didn't get to stay too late in the day, but we had a lot of fun spending time with everyone and helping my mom celebrate her birthday.

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we had to cut our visit with mom short because we had the trip to edmond ahead of us. travis's grandpa passed away the friday before and the funeral was to be held on monday morning in shawnee. i was excited to see the family, but just felt so bad for the girls because they had just lost their grandmother a year ago and now they had lost their dad. jim was also in the hospital in icu, and sue was staying with him almost every moment of the day. the hospital wouldn't let her sleep in his room, and we were grateful, because it made her come home and sleep. the weekend was touch and go for everyone. tabitha started going into labor sunday night ... two months too early. they were able to get her contractions stopped at the hospital, but it was a bit of a scare because she had already dialated to a two. the next day everyone made their way to the funeral and my heart broke for the family. the girls did well saying goodbye to their daddy, but i can't even begin to imagine how hard it must have been for them.