Momma’s Birthday 2015

Well, on December 7th mom turned another year older.

Mom doesn’t like her birthday. She said after you turn 50 it’s no fun. Even though I don’t really like my birthday, I don’t feel like anyone should not look forward to it. I knew I wanted to do something to make it at least a little special. I texted her the night before saying “Working a half day tomorrow…pick you up at 12 for lunch and shopping? You in??”

She agreed and we went to Lunch at Mama Pita mediterranean, shopped around a little bit, then I surprised her with a trip to a cupcake shop that I heard good things about and saw they had gluten free cupcakes. If there’s one thing to know about my mom it’s that she hates eating, like wants to create a pill that you can get nutrition without having to eat kind of thing. It’s just her. So I was like, “oh she won’t get excited over lunch and cupcakes”.

 

I got the only gluten free one they had, the “Triple Chocolate Torte” and mom got the “Peppermint Mocha”. They didn’t have seating at the cupcake shop, so we took them to the mall close by where we were going to shop.

Mine was suuuuuuuper sweet with the icing and she had a lot on hers as you can see, so I used her icing on my cupcake. She told me “this is some good sh**” and it about made my day. You see, my mom is very hard to please. Doing something that she gets excited about is a challenge, so this was a huge win!

While we were shopping, dad called and wanted to get Chinese for dinner. He made reservations at this new restaurant and when we got there at 6:30 (prime eating time) NOBODY was there. It became a joke and I enjoyed laughing about it. We ended up just staying for appetizers and then leaving.

We got dinner at a Hibachi grill nearby. The same one my surprise 13th birthday party was at 😉

Mom on her birthday with her boys.

The boys taught her to “dab”…what that means, I don’t know. But they wanted a picture. #teenagers

Mom and 3/4 of her kids. Ahhh, I live for nights spent with family celebrating each other 🙂

And just so you know, we did bring dad along…someone had to pay AM I RIGHT?!

So on her birthday night she came back, opened her present from her best friend, and went to sleep. She’d already had her birthday sweet and Morgan told us we weren’t allowed to open presents without her. So we had to wait until Thursday night.

Morgan and I were talking back and forth for a while about what to get mom because she’s so hard to shop for…revert to the hard to please comment! I’m a person who would rather spend the money doing something than getting something so I came up with the idea of going to Painting with a Twist. This word document is all we gave her as her gift.

Our first idea was to go bowling, but when we got to the alley it was closed. We ended up driving to some shops kind of nearby and looking around stores until our next event. But we had to get a picture by the big tree.

Pictures in the dark are the worst – ugh!

But we made mom get a picture with both of us 🙂

Afterwards we went for appetizers. Mom and I have a thing for grilled artichokes. Give me all of them! We were outside so the lighting is awful. But just know these babies were devoured!

Morgan and mom shared a pizza while I had spicy garlic noodles. Rice noodles with chicken, spices, and arugula on top! I took a bite of something hard…mom said it was the gristle and I about threw it up so I sent it back and they gave me a free dessert. They obviously didn’t catch on to the fact that I was g-free after I asked for that menu because it was full of gluten…

Third and final stop of the night was at Painting with a Twist. We arrived at our class time to our name place set up, aprons, paint, and canvas ready and I wanted to take a selfie #duh, but Morgan had other ideas. She thinks she’s a model 😉

It’s girl’s night!!

You sign up and pay online, walk in the studio at your class time, pop open your wine, and you’re taught how to paint the painting you sign up for. They allow you to bring your own wine, snacks, etc while providing bottle openers and cups.

The class is two hours and the people in our class were joking around, gossiping, laughing, and having a good time. The instructor was bantering back and forth with the class too. There were 2 couples in our group, so while it was a fun girl’s night, it’s a perfect date night!

She said that night that she really enjoyed it, but she was exhausted so we couldn’t really tell. The next morning I woke up to her texting us different options of paintings because she wanted to go back again. #ANOTHERWIN

The three of us personally loved it because it was something different that we don’t normally do. Obviously, I wouldn’t say take younger guys (like my little brothers). My dad probably wouldn’t have liked it either. You’ve got to know your people, but I will say that it’s perfect for my mom’s age group. I think especially because they appreciate art/painting/that kind of thing more than my generation.

It’s super fun because they all come back looking different, but the same. I’m asking mom where in the house we’re going to hang them 😉

Who did the best?????

I’d have to say this birthday was a good one. Momma liked what she did and got things she wanted. PLUS we got to spend time with her, which I think she’d prefer over anything.

I’d highly recommend Painting with a Twist. See if they have one in your area. And because you might ask, we went to Gigi’s Cupcakes…they’re all over too!