This time last week......

This time last week, my mother's surprise 90th birthday party had finished and we were all exhausted. I haven't blogged in a long time - it was very busy before the party and things stayed busy until a few days ago.

My older meaner sister flew in a week or so before the party to help out. I put her to work on my various crazy ideas - assembling the mint party favours..... Here are the favours all set out ready to be transported to the party:

The favours were clustered on the tables and they looked festive and bright.

The next crazy project involved making cookies from this "Message in a Cookie" creation from Williams Sonoma.

It seems easy enough - make the batter, roll out cookies and then press in the personalized message..... but....I am not a good cookie maker, I am a worse cookie-roller-outer, and the day we were baking these cookies it was one of the hottest days in Vancouver (did you know that no one in Vancouver has air-conditioning?) I did mix 4 batches (light pink and dark pink) but only ended up baking two batches (did I mention it was as hot as Hades that day?) Here are the cookies before they went into the oven. Not bad for a bad cookie-roller-outer, I must say:

Other things I made my older meaner sister do: help me make 125 cupcakes for the party (on another hot hot day), make frozen and fresh tea sandwiches for the party, shop for party supplies, shop for provisions for all the family that would be arriving....and on and on....
We managed to keep the party a complete surprise from my mother. She said she was so shocked when she came into the hall that she almost collapsed. There were over 80 people - friends from her activities and neighbourhood. There were so many great things that happened .....great acts of generosity, kindness and friendship. I will report in those things tomorrow.
You might remember that I scanned all her photos over the last few months - and I put together a rough slideshow/video of her life to show at her party. My firstborn, daughter and heir edited it.....and we showed it at the party. If you are interested, here it is: