Happy Birthday Mom

October 11th.

Happy Birthday Mom.

My mom would have been 68 years old today.

She was taken from us WAY too early.

This post is not about sadness.

Today is a day where I celebrate my mom's birthday.

Growing up, on our birthdays we always got to pick whatever we wanted for our birthday dinner and my mom would make that for us.  We usually would have the celebration over at my grandma and grandpa's house.

Every year I asked for spaghetti.

The last year she was alive, I asked for something different.  I asked for tacos.  You know the kind, where the tortillas are cooked in oil. 

Yum....my mouth is watering just thinking about them.

And since she died, every year on her birthday I now make tacos like that.  In honor, a celebration of her life. A day to laugh and remember all the wonderful things about my mom.

And every year, my sisters also make tacos on her birthday.  Even though the 3 of us don't live in the same town or state, it's something we do together.  It's a memory that we all share together, those tacos.  Each one of us have our own memories of her and in our own way.  Yes, they intertwine in many, many ways as well, but each of us have our favorite.

Take her tacos for example.  Both my sisters remember her taco sauce that she made.  I can't even tell you all that's in it because I never had it.  I know it has tomato sauce, onions and oregano?

For me, my memory of her tacos was the cheese.  Back when we were growing up, we didn't have much, but my mom would make do with what she had.  I don't think we even had a cheese grater at first, so I always remember my mom basically dicing the cheese into small little squares for the tacos.

I can't wait to have them tonight.

I will write another post about her at another time.

For this time, it's a time to celebrate her birthday.

My mom was an amazing woman, mom and grammie (here she is with both my girls when they were wee ones)

This one picture I captured of the two of them is one of my all-time favorites.  Just sitting on the back patio against the wall talking and enjoying each other.

Happy Birthday Mom.