How Do You Celebrate a Birthday in Heaven?

With food and cake and balloons of course. How else would you celebrate a birthday, I ask you...

Today is my mom's birthday. My kids call her "Grandma in Heaven", so today is Grandma in Heaven's birthday. And just like every year on her birthday, we celebrated.

First there is our traditional birthday dinner. When I was growing up and my dad would go out of town, my mom would always make the same dinner- hot dogs, baked beans and egg noodles with garlic salt. Turns out this is a tradition from her family too. Mom made her hotdogs in the frying pan, so did Grandma McKenna. I have to boil mine because the kids freak out politely request there be no black stuff on their hot dogs. Other than that, we keep with traditional preparation methods.

Can't ya smell those dogs? Yum.

Next, we make a card and send it to Heaven via balloon. This year was a little more emotional. For me? Probably hormones/sleep deprivation/missing my mom/watching my children send messages to their grandma. For Nathan and Tyler it was the loss of their beloved giant balloon.

Saying "Happy Birthay!" to Grandma...

Then we keep watching it fly off to Heaven...

Until it gets all the way there and we can't see it anymore.

And there is a philosophy that my mother and I shared throughout my childhood. It's very profound and very important and philosophicalish. You might want to get a pen and write this down, because it's just that inspiring. This is it...

When all is said and done, if you can find any reason, excuse or occasion to eat dessert...you should do it.

Happy Birthday Mama. I'm so thankful to be your daughter and, as you can see, I am as bad at decorating cakes as you were at making pie crusts.