Mom's 6 Year Cancer Free Party!!

6 years ago my mom  was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. It was the hardest thing on our family. We all thought we would lose her to this horrible disease. If we did what would become of our family? How would we survive? It was such a scary time. Yet at the same time it was what brought our family closer than we ever had been before. We learned to lean on each other for support, how to look for peace with in the family unit, and above all we learned to have faith that God would take care of our mother and our family in any circumstance. I never would have guessed that from such a great trial would come a wonderful blessing. Watching my mom struggle through having a mastectomy, lumpectomy, lemphadema, chemo and radiation was just awe-inspiring. She never lost her faith. She lost her boob and hair, but not her faith. haha yes I know a horrible joke. That was one of the coping mechanisms my family used to get through it as well. We made fun of everything about Cancer. If we could laugh at it some how it wasn't as scary, we made it smaller than it was and took away its power. We knew that no matter what happened it was in Gods hands. We knew this because mom never let us forget. Our loving Heavenly Father was watching over us and especially mom in this difficult time. Mom is a survivor and therefore as a family we survived cancer as well. Mom is a wonderful example of unwavering faith, love and strength. Even after spending most of the night throwing up she would go to church so that she could take sacrament. She made an effort to still go to any school thing going on with us kids. She never lost her fight for a happy long life. I'm so grateful for such a great mom.

So there is a point in me telling you all this story. Not only to brag about how wonderful my mama is. This Sept is the 6 year anniversary of her surgery and fight against Cancer. She wanted to celebrate it but she had no clue to what extent we wanted to celebrate. She asked for a girls day and she got that and much more. Andrea decided that we should throw mom a surprise party and invite all of her friends and our friends that were there for her during that time. Amanda, Andrea and I  started planning the beginning of last month with the help of Dad and Sean. We didn't tell James or Justin because they would have blown the secret. Mom planned for us girls to go get our nails done (with the breast cancer ribbon on them of course) and then go to lunch and as you wish. We planned that after the girls day stuff was over we would get her to go to the church some how for the party. This is how the day played out.

We met at walmart to get a mani/pedi. Notice the breast cancer ribbon on our toes :) twas mom's idea. Anytime you get us girls together there is just non-stop sillyness. (Robyn wasn't able to be there due to the fact that she lives so freaking far away. Lame idea to move to Wyoming. She was missed lots.) Mom just laughs and laughs at us all the time and tells us we are weird but we know she loves it! Then after our nails we went to lunch at Olive Garden. YUM! Yes you can be jealous. After that we took our girls day to As You Wish. If you don't know what that is then you are definitely missing out. Its a paint your own pottery place. We love going there! Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures while we were there. We get the finished products today so I'll post pictures of them later. While we were there Andrea told mom she had a meeting at the church building for primary so we had Corey come pick her up and take her so we could finish our pottery. Really Andrea was going to the church to set up for the party. Then after we were done Amanda and I took mom to the church to pick up Andrea to "go to the movies". Then.... SURPRISE MAMA!!!!!! Everyone was there waiting and the cultural hall looked great! Mom had no clue the whole time and was super surprised. haha She even told Amanda she was going to , her words not mine, "going to hell for lying to me" lol She isn't the attention on me type but she still really enjoyed her party. We just all hung out for awhile then Dad, Amanda, Andrea and I went to the front and told a couple stories about mom and the cancer. Then we had a awesome slideshow Andrea made with pictures of mom and put to the song "I'm gonna love you through it" by Martina Mcbride.

I'll get the video from Andrea later and put it up here for you all to see as well. The party was a huge success.

 

This is us in the shirts Mom and I made. She had no clue at the time that they were really for the party. She thought we wanted to make them just for going out with her. Mom sewed on the ribbon and I did the words that you can't see in the picture (just noticed that, sad day.) It says in black stitching "My mom (grandma on the babies) is a survivor. And on mom's it says "I am a survivor" but instead of an "o" it has the ribbon.

Thank you to all who came to the party and made it so awesome. Mom said she had a blast and felt so loved.