Birthday Dinner

So Friday night we had my mom's birthday dinner. I spent a large part of the afternoon at lunch with her & her friends. I got home after the kids (right about 3) since I had to stop and pick up a few things on my way home. I expected everyone around 5 for dinner.... I stopped and picked up my parents Farbereare rotisserie to cook the roast beef after lunch at the Olive Garden. As I went to put the roast on at 4:15 I realized that I had forgotton one piece (the one that holds the heating element) so into the oven it went ... unfortunately that adds 1/2 -an hour to the cooking time! So off to a late start, I continued on. I pulled out the potatoes I bought earlier in the week... and as I set it on the counter lots of little tiny bugs flew out!!! Yikes. So into the trash those went. I waited for Jon and Steven to get home from batting and headed to the store. Got more potatoes and headed home... my brothers family was already there. So I got started peeling! My parents arrived then, so I set my mom to work helping me peel potatoes. (She always complains that I don't ever let her help -happy birthday Mom! LOL). We got those cooking and it was just a waiting game. Then as my mom, Ciera, Cyn and I sat around the table we tossed about the idea of having cake first... I told them not to tease and it was decided.. we would.. so we gathered the troops to sing as I realized I forgot to get candles.... so I tried to lite a bamboo skewer, but it wouldn't stay lit.... then it was pointed out to me that there was a candle on the table, sounds good -we lit that and sang to her. Then we ate cake! It was marble with chocolate buttercream frosting and yummy, especially before dinner.

Eventually we had dinner (roast beef, corn, potatoes and gravy).. then we gave her a present. Just one, from all of us... a new ipod nano. Jonathan had it ready to go complete with her music playlist and some movies. She seemed excited (see picture below) and we were happy to give her something that will be used and last a long time (unless she keeps dropping it) for this milestone birthday.
The kids seemed to like the Ipod too.. it is shaped different than theirs--so it intrigued them... plus they had to show her how it worked!

I got this shot of mom and Brian before he left to go home. It had been a long day as it was a work day and we ended the night close to 9pm... still a great picture -so happy I asked them to take it!