January 28th is an interesting day in our family. Not only was it my Grandma Betty’s birthday but it’s also my Mom’s. I know how weird is it that my Dad married a woman with the same birthday as his mother….crazy. And yet, in junior high I met and befriended this crazy little hispanic girl, Brenda, in gym class whose birthday was also on 1/28. Years later (sixteen to be exact – damn! are we old!), I’m still friends with Brenda and still find it amazing that I am surrounded by this goofy birth date, LOL. Anyway, it’s always tough trying to figure out when we’re getting together with mom or for me, with Brenda to say Happy Birthday and give them their gifts. This year was no different but it all worked out. Brenda is the big 3-0 this year, so it was kind of a big one….and her lovely sister in law, Chrystal, threw her a surprise party. Being the artsy girl that I am I had to do something special to mark the occasion and since Brenda doesn’t have a lot of things on her apartment walls I figured a little bit of framed artsy-goodness would be appropriate. I looked on line for quotes about friendship and finally stumbled across one I thought was perfect. Here was her birthday surprise:

And for my Mom, I made three little cartoon portraits with painted frames. Her whole house is basically country quilts, sewing garb or my Dad’s baseball and vintage car knick-knacks. So it’s safe to say RED is everywhere. Not to mention it’s only like her most favorite color in the whole wide world, LOL. So here they are…me and my two younger sisters…as kids (you know when we were still cute and adorable).