But I Don't Want a Party

When we all got together at Christmas, my sister brought up the fact that mom would turn 80 in April. She felt it was important to recognize this event with a party. Mom is the type of person who doesn't like a fuss being made over her. The idea of a party (gasp) in her honor (double gasp) just wasn't to her liking. She had mentioned to me over a year ago, that she would just prefer the whole birthday pass without notice. Sharyn, however, is sort of a force to be reckoned with.

I couldn't help. First of all, work was consuming days and weeks. We remain intensely busy and my having to make decisions, find things, send out invitations or other things just wasn't something I was going to be able to do in a timely fashion. Second, but most importantly, I had a wedding to attend. This wedding was going to occur 2 weeks before the weekend set for Mom's birthday party. The best I could do was assist when I got to Iowa and do some light tasks from Illinois. That was fine. My sister took over.

She picked the food and helped mom find places that would make it. She sent out the invitations and was the point of contact for RSVP's. She coordinated with mom's husband, Dale's, family for what they offered to bring. She arrived a week before everything was to happen and made sure we had all the supplies.

Sharyn, my brother's fiancee, Mary, and I made cheesecakes.

I made a lightly lemon-flavored cheesecake with blueberry topping.

There was a plain and a plain with cherry topped cheesecake. Mary made chocolate and mocha and caramel cheesecake bars. If there's one thing we do well, it's dessert.

We had sloppy joes (or Maid Rites, depending upon which part of Iowa you're from) and beans. Farther down the table were veggies, fruit salad and chips.

We rented the basement of a local dentist's office. It was the perfect size for our gathering. Decorations were simple.

Sharyn found everything at the dollar store.

One of Dale's daughters-in-law, Amy, made bouquets for the tables.

and

With five tables, we had 10 bouquets so I brought a couple back with me.

The sunlight on the daffodils just made them sparkle. I took the daffodils to work but kept the daisies at home.

Daisies are such hardy flowers. These lasted for 3 weeks with regular changes of water.

One of the cool things was this slide show of mom done on mom's mac. Sharyn scanned in a wide variety of photos and added them to the packaged music in the program. I printed some photos from Carole and Larry's wedding and we found a few photos of the cousins to add to the table.  (Carole and Larry were starting their honeymoon cruise to the Caribbean so weren't able to come.) There was a bag for cards. Mom had requested no gifts, a request some of us ignored. There was also a letter from an aunt who lives in California. It didn't take us long to set up and we were ready for relatives.

Beverage:  English Breakfast Tea

Deb