Happy Birthday, Dee Dee!

Today we celebrated Dee Dee’s birthday.  It was a pretty quiet little party…Mom has not been feeling so well lately.  She already has been struggling with some thyroid problems (they have found some nodes growing on it), and she will be having a biopsy performed at the end of the month.  Last Sunday, she and I spent the day in the Emergency Room of the VA Hospital, not sure whether or not she was going to have emergency surgery for some abdominal issues.  Although emergency surgery was not required, she will be having surgery for those problems in the near future.  So we were grateful to actually be celebrating her birthday, and glad that Mandy and her little family were able to join us.

Here’s a picture of Dee Dee when she was just a wee tot living in Dodson, Texas (her sister, Jan is on the left and Mom is on the right):

And here is a giggly high school Dee Dee (on the left) with her best friend from back in the day:

Mom was 33 years old when she joined the Army (I am so impressed that she made it through Basic Training so well!):

And here’s her picture from Christmas just a couple of years or so back:

It’s been hard to see her struggling with these health issues and feeling so miserable.  We are really hoping and praying that she will be back to her old self soon and really be able to enjoy time with her family again.

Of course, even though it was Dee Dee’s birthday, the most beautiful girl in the world stole the show.  She posed with her Uncle Vinny in her new UT hat while we were waiting for the spaghetti to finish cooking:

After stuffing herself with spaghetti and bread, she had a ball eating birthday cake!

Paisley was right in on helping to make Dee Dee’s birthday dinner a real celebration and she certainly helped to make Dee Dee smile!