This past month my mom celebrated 5 years cancer free. Wow, there are no words that can describe how overjoyed I am we are able to make that statement.  My mom is an amazing woman…kind, understanding, creative, sarcastic, beautiful and so much more.  We celebrated with a little surprise party and a Boston Cream Pie… my mom had mentioned in passing that she had not had one in ages and missed it. We started our day with my sister, nephew, brother-n-law and cousins at the Fall Festival here in the small town in which my family lives.  I love the Fall Festival, always have…great fall weather, funnel cakes, corn dogs, arts & crafts, lots of happy, smiling faces… just an all around good time 🙂 After that we took my nephew to the pumpkin patch and my sister and I were noticing that we were running out of time as it was getting closer and closer to 4pm ( the time we were to have our mom home for her surprise party) so we tried as un-obviously as possible to hurry things a long.  My sister and her crew headed to the house and my mom rode with me. As we were leaving the pumpkin patch she mentioned that she needed to go to the grocery store, gas station and some other silly little errand. ARGH…it is almost impossible to shuffle someone to a surprise party without letting the cat out of the bag but somehow I did it! We walked in and she was stunned and in tears.  Surrounded by all of the people she loved who were there to let her know just how very much she was loved in return. She is a fighter and I am so very lucky to call her my mom.

Ok, oddly enough, I don’t have any photos from the actual party. Lame of me I know, but true.  I did however grab a few shots that day of my nephew and cousins.  Be prepared: the last shot might be the cutest one you will ever see 🙂  Even though there are no photographs from the party I will be able to look back on these images and remember the exact day they were taken and exactly the reason we were all gathered at my mom’s house that day.

This is Aaron, Aidan and Andrew – our 5 year old boys.  — another reason to celebrate 5 years 🙂

Magic hour was gorgeous that night and all of the other kiddos were just sick of me. haha. So I grabbed sweet baby Lily after she finished her dinner and took these shots of her. She was SO patient with me. I have had a pretty rough year and I can honestly say that she has been the brightest spot of that year. thankful for her and thankful that she still tolerates my incessant photo taking 🙂