Birthday Mom

A few weeks ago DMIL turned 60! Here is the card I made her using Melanie's Little Tees set by Gina K Designs. I thought pairing it with Basic Grey's Cupcake paper would be a lot of fun and for this card used 4 of the patterns. DMIL loved it & said she would love to have a t-shirt just like it! There are endless options for this set! I used PTI's Lemon Tart cardstock & twill ribbon as well as the Basic Grey cupcake brads.
Here's a pic of all of us (John's younger brother Steven is on the right). We went out to Johnny Fin's restaurant on Lake Travis with live music that was pretty good. We fed the ducks the whole time we were there, they were so cute to watch scramble for the food thrown to them. It was a real low key time (not a ton of fanfare you would expect for such a milestone birthday but that was about all she could handle physically but it was real nice). We had mixed berry cheesecake for dessert at home.

DMIL is a very special lady, so gentle, kind, loving - a real prayer warrior. In fact, God impressed on her to pray for me even before I was a reality to them. He told her to pray for her son's future wives; to prepare them-call them forth. I had no idea for all those years; but when I was told realized what a value that was and how much it was a true demonstration of God's love. I knew God was looking out for me but not that it spanned hundreds of miles as He held me close to His heart through her (and John because he was also praying for me). Believe it or not - I was praying for him too even before we knew one another. One of these days I may bore you (or inspire you) with our love story. Anyone wonder how we hooked up with me living in CA and him in TX? Well this blog post is about my DMIL so I will wait on that.

I will tell you that the year before John and I 'met' is the year my birth mom died of Lung Cancer. In fact it was a few weeks shy of the anniversary of her death that I made my home with John in Texas. One of the most special things my DMIL does for me is remember the anniversary of my mom's death every year (the day of she takes me to lunch, a way to not remind me of my loss but to honor my mom in treating me like a daughter should be treated and make me feel loved). I am humbled and so grateful for her thoughtfulness and endearing qualities as a mom. That is why it was not hard for me to begin calling her that. She is in no way a replacement for my birth mom, in fact Josephine (my mom) was 'Ma' to me and that she will remain. But God saw fit to be sure I was not without the blessing of a 'mom' in my life so that is what Donna (DMIL) is to me now.