for my mama...

I had the best childhood...

you know...the kind where your parents kept you a kid as long as possible...

{there seems to be less and less of this now-a-days}

but my parents also let me grow...and spread my wings...and find my own way...

Holidays were THE BEST...

Every holiday was special...

birthdays ALWAYS consisted of homemade cakes...some of which my mother must have spent HOURS on when we were young...piping 11 different colors onto a princess shaped cake by hand...
or the time she made a cake in the shape of a clock and all the numbers around the cake were written on cupcakes with the arrows pointing to however old I was!! 

{brilliant mamasita!  brilliant!}...

when I was 16, my mom made me a giant drivers license cake!  Complete with my picture in the upper left hand corner! 

I don't think I appreciated the time it must have taken to make these...but, believe me, now that I am a mother...I am singin a whole different tune...  

Halloween was complete with handmade costumes...

{of course, duh!... doesn't everyone do that!!  hee hee!}...

I can recall going to the fabric store and her picking out that little white bag costume thingy, with the picture of what ever you wanted to be on it...just buy the fabric and sew together...easy as pie!  {NOT} 

{& I have NO idea what the name of that is...because I cannot sew A LICK}

...seriously...she tried to teach me back in the day with a needle, thread, and a washcloth...and I would just bunch up the washcloth with random lines of thread.  It was always A MESS!

...and...what do you know...my mama's costumes... always looked perfect!

Christmas...aaaaaaaaaahhhhh...Christmas...

I could fill a book on how special Christmas was at our house...

my mom would sit my brother and I down at the kitchen table and hand us the Toys R' Us catalog... 

a bowl full of oranges and a bowl full of those little pokey clove thingys, {I think that's what they are?}

and we stuck a trillion of them into the oranges...

and OH.MY.LORD. did those smell good...

we would cut strips of colored paper and paste them together to make ring garland...
and then hang them in the house somewhere!! 

{I forgot about this stuff!} 

& we made popcorn garland...tons and tons of popcorn garland...

popcorn garland til our fingers killed from pushing the needle through the popcorn kernels...

then we would hang them on the tree...

one of my favorite things my mom would do was the "present countdown" I like to call it ;)

On the 25 days leading up to Christmas...my mom would wrap a gift a day for me and my brother...

we would come home from school and there would be a present for each of us

{usually the same size...my mother was big on everything being as equal as possible}
underneath the tree...

IT WAS SOOOO TERRIBLY EXCITING!!!! 

We looked forward to seeing what was underneath the tree every day! 

but, we never shook them...we just admired them...& tried to guess what they could be...

My mom understood the importance of *magic* for a child...

she made sure we had as much of that magic as we could each and every holiday...

our lives were filled with fun...and treats...and music...and dancing...and love...

& I will be forever grateful to my mother for teaching me that magic...

to keep my child...a child...as long as I can...

to create special memories...

to bake cakes {even if they don't look like my mom's ;}...

& to make decorations as a family...

to dance in the family room...

to have the Thanksgiving day parade on tv EVERY Thanksgiving...no matter how much we groaned...

to give hugs...and kisses...even when we push you away...

thank you mom...

for loving me