My mom loves yellow. She loves daisies, hydrangeas, and yellow roses~ and, most of all, she really loves her family! I had so much fun bringing all of her favorites together to help her celebrate her 70th birthday. Her cousins are more like her sisters, and so we invited them to spend a weekend at the lake to help us celebrate!
My mom is an only-child, and she and her mom were very close. My grandmother loved butterflies, and so when I had the mini cakes made for each guest, I requested a butterfly on my mom's cake to represent my grandmother's memory...I wanted her to be a part of our celebration, too!
It was so fun to use linens that were hand-embroidered and crocheted by my great-grandmother. My mom spent a lot of time with her growing up, and so I loved incorporating them into the party!
Daisy cookies were almost too pretty to eat~ JP Creatibles surprised me with these having been given free reign to create a design of her choice!
Because our guests were staying overnight, we had tea and cookies served on a silver tray before bedtime. There were straws of local honey for the tea with straw flags saying, "Good Night, Honey" and "Sweet Dreams, Honey". A card on the trays read, "Relax and Enjoy"~ a perfect way to wind down from a busy day!
To echo the sentiment of the heirloom embroidered linens, I had cocktail napkins made for each guest with their initial. They were so beautiful, and my mom's was made extra-special~
My father, my husband, and my son were the "boys" at the party, and we didn't leave them out! McCall Wilder found a wonderful way to provide them with a party favor, too!
I set up lemonade on the porch to enjoy throughout the day. There was the most hilarious wind that day and no hope for keeping the tablecloth draped on the table. We bunched it and it was perfect!
As a child, I remember that my mom would ask my dad to stop the car when we came to a certain patch of wild daisies and Queen Anne's Lace~ she would pick it and use it for arrangements around our house. I was so happy to put a vase of Queen Anne's Lace on the porch for everyone to enjoy and my mom got a kick out of my memory of that!
I served lunch outdoors by the lake. Each place setting at the table had a decorative "gift box" made of a wood block wrapped with fabric and tied with a bow. I had fun choosing the different scraps of fabric to use to make each one a little different!
Part of the decoration for the party was the dress my mom wore as a child in her cousin's wedding. As a surprise for my mom, we took pictures of her youngest granddaughters wearing the dress.
I really enjoyed decorating for the party using pieces from my mom's life. Photos were an obvious choice, but I also loved using my great-grandmother's "dough bowl" to fill with fruits and flowers. I used one for the centerpiece on the lunch table...
I also used one on the table on the porch. I lined it with one of the antique embroidered linens...
Photos of my mom that I love~
Flower arrangements on the porches with Happy Birthday messages~
They all enjoyed a day of spending time together...
This is one of my favorite snapshots of the day!
Instead of candles, we lit 70 luminaries up and down the driveway and on the porch. We used battery-operated tea lights so that it would be lit when we came home from dinner. It was beautiful!
My mom talks about her party so much, and she loves to re-tell the day. That means the most to me! It really was a true pleasure to spend the weekend with family and celebrate a special mom and birthday! Happy Birthday, Mom! Thanks for being so wonderful to us all!
