. . . half a century . . .

. . . fifty is a really big number . . .
. . . for my really big day,
my sweet daughters,
sons-in-law,
and husband
wrote "poetry" for me . . .
. . . you know those kind of poems
~ i believe they're called acrostic ~
where you write the letters of your name
down the left hand side of the page
and then write something
about the person
beginning with each letter? . . .

. . . everyone was a good sport
{honestly, who'd want to write about me?}
and participated . . .
. . . they were given exactly three minutes
to compose their
deepest and most heartfelt thoughts . . .
. . . amanda collected and shuffled them . . .
. . . then, as she read them
i was instructed to guess
who had written what . . .
. . . it was pretty easy,
since each person was SO amused
at his/her own cleverness,
they couldn't stop laughing . . .
. . . some of my favorites
~ in no particular order ~
and not necessarily true . . .

S ~ super, stylish, sewing genius
T ~ tearful in regard to Drew, the bees knees, toes polished
E ~ expert, elegant decorator, elite blogger
P ~ phanny packs, phlowers, pretty awesome cinnamon bread
H ~ humorous, has leftovers!, halloween ~ not her favorite
A ~ amber/amanda/amelia/andrew's mommy, awesome gardener
N ~ never wears PJs in public, nifty, no nonsense
I ~ is my fave MIL, incredible Christmas decor, independent
E ~ every time i'm over~house is clean, excellent stroganoff

. . . i thought everyone's ideas had been shared,
but amanda started reading yet another . . .
. . . she had even gotten
elder drew to participate via email . . .
. . . my laughter turned to tears
{see "T" above}
as i listened to his contributions,
which may not seem as funny to you
as they were to me
{i'll try to explain where necessary}

S ~ says i'm the cutest boy at porter elementary [he was]
T ~ tunnle, carple {check spelling, but that's funny} [i have it]
E ~ egg pan [he made scrambled eggs every morning and never washed the pan]
P ~ phiddle pharting around [his favorite phrase of mine]
H ~ hunts for key changes [i point them out during Wilberg arrangements of MoTab numbers]
A ~ ANDREW DAVIS ROMNEY!
N ~ as in nancy [it's hard to spell romney over the phone - "m as in mary, n as in nancy"]
I ~ i'll be home in 18ish months
E ~ excellent {insert uplifting noun here}

. . . he's a funny/weird boy
and i'm so glad he was included
in the festivities . . .
. . . in a bonus email yesterday,
drew said, "happy birthday, mama . . .
. . . your birthday is mexican independence day
and people are going to party so hard tonight . . .
. . . they party the day before
so that they can be hung over
on the day that they don't have to work . . ."
. . . i'd like to thank all of mexico
for celebrating right along with me . . .

. . . in other news, i wanted to include actual photos of these literary masterpieces,
but i'm working on a new computer here and
i have no idea whatsoever how to get my photos from there to here
{my dear son-in-law spent the better part of his weekend
setting up everything "new computer"-related for me,
but i still have plenty of questions. HELP, BRENT!!!!}