1. Doing cartwheels on my grandparent’s lawn.
2. Skipping everywhere.
3. Buying gummy worms or other great treats out of Ream’s serve yourself bins.
4. Putting together treat jars for the YW sleepover at our house that she let me attend even though I was too young.
5. Writing notes at camp.
6. Reading daily letters at any camp I attended that she wasn’t at.
7. Finding sweet notes of encouragement and love on my bed after or during a hard day.
8. Going to pick up my cat Lucky (a very vague memory) and being so excited when she came out holding her.
9. Taking Lucky to the vet’s for the last time and being grateful there was someone else there who was crying as much as I was.
10. Going to Panda Express in Logan when she came to visit.
11. Getting our picture taken in a booth at the mall.
12. Walking around the mall in an attempt to get me into labor with Breanne.
13. Going to see “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” together and laughing like crazy.
14. Walking around her neighborhood every night and joking about the neighborhood boys being in love with me.
15. Talking about how boys are like dogs.
16. The first time she let me drive around the neighborhood… her obviously panicky face… with good reason… but we made it…
17. Her swordfighting with other kids on the elevator during band tour.
18. Blowing straw wrappers.
19. Yardsailing (remember the almost dead cat?).
20. Going to lunch in Salt Lake.
21. Playing with her at the armory during recess.
22. Talking about flowers and plants.
23. Daily phone calls.
24. Sudoku races during Breanne’s labor.
25. Playing Scrabble.
26. Going to get Dolly.
27. Going through the temple.
28. Shopping for baby things before my first baby shower.
29. Going shopping after my breakdown when I didn’t get any presents for my 13th birthday.
30. Girls nights when the boys were all at Father and Sons.
31. Taking “engagement” pics.
32. Planning my wedding.
33. Laughing so hard we cried (now I can’t even remember what made us laugh, but it’s happened several times).
34. All our laundry room talks… man was I an awkward child.
35. Her graduation at SLCC.
36. My graduation at UVSC.
37. Working together on simple things, like housecleaning.
38. The way she made tedious jobs fun by making them a game, like when she put all the jobs in a hat, and let us choose what we did, or when she’d let us each choose a cd to listen to while we cleaned, and crank the music throughout the house.
39. The way she guessed when I was pregnant the second time, when I hadn’t mentioned anything about it to her.
40. How she encouraged me to date Cory.
41. Shopping for my first post-marriage birthday.
42. Her constant reassurance when I was about 6, and certain that somehow someone was going to blow up our house with dynamite, or burn it down or something (or even worse, that it would be my parents that were the bad guys!).
43. Watching her interact with my girls.
44. Seeing her embrace her role as grandma.
45. Her enthusiasm when we wanted to buy a house, and willingness to help us accomplish that.
46. Realizing how much she must have sacrificed to help us do the activities we wanted to growing up.
47. Waiting for Breanne to come, just hanging out.
48. Spending time with her after both Breanne and Janey came, and all of her help.
49. Watching her love my dad.
50. Knowing that despite our differences, she really does love me.

Happy 50th Birthday, Mom. I want you to know how much we love you, and appreciate all you do for us. And I hope you don’t mind that I just broadcast your age to all my readers. I hope you had a wonderful birthday, and that you wear your helmet when you ride your bike, because we want you around for a long time.