Happy Birthday to the Mama...

SOMEONE has a very special birthday today!!
I won't tell you the number, but it's an "important" one. You know, the kind that really deserves a big party, but my sisters and I were threatened within an inch of our lives if we threw one. Since we're fond of life, we decided to obey.

There's a first time for everything.

She may have won on the party, but she isn't winning on the public photo slide show! (She'll never know. She doesn't read the blog. And you all don't have big mouths, right?)

I have a good Mama. (Even when I pick on her.) She has loved me through thick...
...and thin. :) She has always been quite a champion and supporter of me, which I really appreciate, since I sort of showed up late and threw a wrench in the plans of life.

She puts up with my quirks...like excessive photo taking...

...though not without some argument, sometimes.

Actually I think she hates the pictures. She always says, "They look just like me!" (Well, her or Wilson on Home Improvement.)

Though we have had our struggles about it, she has allowed me to grow up into my own person - even if said person does things that exasperate her, like wearing dresses that "need a dickie" and adding ridiculous flowers to her hair. :)

I can think of no bigger supporter of my career change from Financial Aid to radio. I told her my goal was to make her just like Mark Lowry's "Mama." She asked that I not tell QUITE as many stories about her as he does about his mom. Good thing she doesn't read the blog, huh?

She started early in "training me up in the way I should go" - and I credit her with some of my good habits - like daily devotions and creative Scripture memory. And it was her idea to bring back some water from the Jordan River...which I used in my baptism earlier this year. So glad she did that!

And as a gift to her today, I will not show any of the "bending over under the Christmas tree" pictures - though you have no idea how much I want to.

Happy birthday, Mom! I hope it's a wonderful day filled with much cake. I'll eat the icing.