1st Annual Dessert for Dinner Night

The last five days have been a blur of activity!!! I'm going to have to blog about it over the next few days because there is just soooo much to share!

Last week we drove down to Phoenix to celebrate my mom's birthday.  As many of you know, my precious mother passed away this year, and the days and months to follow have been some of the most difficult of my life. I was determined not to sit around and feel sorrowful when her birthday came around, so I decided to start a new tradition with my family to honor her.  My mother was a passionate dessert lover with an insatiable sweet-tooth.  I decided that every year, on her birthday, we would go out and eat dessert for dinner!  Mom did this from time to time, herself. She would always say, "Why eat dinner and waste the calories when what I really crave is dessert?"

My kids LOVED the idea, and so we joined the rest of the family and went to The Cheesecake Factory for our first annual "Dessert for Dinner" celebration in Mom's honor.

I had a slice of this:

Pumpkin Cheesecake!

I even ordered a Dr. Pepper to go with it! Mom loved her Dr. Pepper.

The whole family spent the evening laughing, and talking around the table, and then we cruised around the mall to work off some of the calories. Mom would have loved this, and I hope to continue our annual "Dessert for Dinner" night for years to come!