Mom's turn: A Mother's Treat

This was a particularly special Mother’s Day…I was a mom of two beautiful young ladies, Christina and Mao! What a special blessing – if only for a brief time. And they sure know how to pamper and spoil me and make me feel like a queen! Teeny started with an entire weekend of special treatment on Saturday! She gave me a foot rub, neck rub, manicure and pedicure, and cooked me dinner (complete with homemade stuffed mushrooms that she had planned and shopped for!) on a beautifully set table with some fresh magnolia flowers for decoration. Sunday, Travis fixed me breakfast – my favorite “runny eggs on toast,” a long time name of what I didn’t know was poached eggs when I was young, Mao gave me roses, and everyone gave me cards. Then we went to a wonderful Sunday service dedicated to the women in Jesus’ lineage and I received another gift from the ladies at church – a flower pen. Afterwards, we went to one more spot…La Madeline’s where I got my favorite soup in the world, tomato basil. Yum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel so incredibly blessed to have such a beautiful family!!

Mom's turn: The Lost Easter Bunny!

Ooops – not sure how this one got away…but Easter was FABULOUS this year and, late or not, it definitely deserves a blog.
Mao wasn’t familiar with our Easter traditions, so Christina wanted to show her all about it. They started with eggs; they boiled about 2 dozen eggs and then dyed them for the Easter bunny to hide the next day.

on the phone EVEN while dying eggs!!!

While they did that, I made a center piece for the dining room table and set it with the China in preparation for tomorrow’s family lunch.

The next morning the girls woke up early to see what the Easter bunny had left for them: a basket full of goodies for each young lady including books, stuffed animals, candy, and toys. Then they searched for the eggs that were hidden by that rascle, the Easter Bunny!

This led to big grins and then we all got dressed in our new fancy dresses for Easter services.

We were joined by friends and family for an outstanding church service that was overflowing from the building! Afterwards, we went home where we were joined by even more family and enjoyed the combined bounty of all the family cooks for a fabulous lunch. Overall, I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection!

Mom's turn: Mao's treat

After the tournament Christina requested a stop at the Asian Gourmet Market, a favorite shop of hers that we used to go to a lot when she was younger and she would buy a Japanese candy. Moa was excited to be around such familiar items and said that she would fix us dinner! She made hayashi raisu, a Japanese beef stew of sorts. Her variation had no mushrooms and a scrambled egg mixture placed on top of the rice before the beef and sauce were put on. It was DELICIOUS!!!!!! She said the rice “wasn’t good”; I’m not sure if that meant that it wasn’t cooked properly or flavored properly…but to the inexperienced pallet it was fabulous! Thanks Mao.

Mom's turn: Sweet Tooth

After dinner, Teeny asked, “What’s for dessert?” Her daddy gave the quick and sarcastic response of, “what are you making?” So my very resourceful DD went to the kitchen, pulled out her favorite cookbook, a very old copy of Joy of Cooking, and, with Mao’s help, they made some FABULOUS oatmeal and raison cookies!! They were delicious with a cold glass of milk, but “a moment on the lips is a lifetime on the hips” prompted us to share with neighbors so we could enjoy without feeling gluttonous!

Mom's turn: Nutcracker

Travis picked up two very large bags of pecans when he went hunting for deer on his uncle’s farm this week. At least he came home with something ;-) However, today he has spent ALL day cracking and shelling them. What a chore! We ended up with five bags when he was finished. Thankfully my FIL had an actual nutcracker, not the little man either, that he let us borrow to make the job go faster…well, as fast as possible. Now we will have fresh pecans frozen for recipes all year long! I really want to try and make some candied pecans…but that would go against my low-carb training diet ::sigh:: What a dilemma :-D

Samson likes pecans, too!

Mom's turn: FRESH!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow…nothing is more satisfying than fresh picked veggies from your very own garden! Travis’ hard work has paid off again, this time with cabbage and broccoli!! So today we get cabbage & broccoli coleslaw with our gumbo, compliments of Travis! YUMMMY!!!!!!!!!!

holiday tradition.

Each year around the holidays we have a tradition of making persimmon bread. It is delicious! My grandpa has a tree, and since he doesn’t eat them, we have a ton! Well this year mean old hurricane Gustavo knocked ALL the persimmons off the tree so we could not have any bread! We just could not stand not having bread for breakfast and snacks though, so my mom made pumpkin bread! It is equally as delicious as the persimmon bread, so I think next year we will be very confused on which one to make.

Mom's turn: Hurricane Buffet

When you have no electricity and you’re hungry, you quickly adapt! So – the best thing in a blackout is a banana, honey, & peanut butter sandwich with apple chips & milk!! Lots of carbs for a quick energy boost and lots of protein to keep it going; needed for the neighborhood inspection and debris removal to follow!!

There are also some combos that you would never dream of if they weren’t forced! Like: wine, hamburgers, lima beans, Texas toast and chips. UHHHHHHH – just how many carbs DO you need for energy??? Anyway – we’re back to that “cooking it before it ruins” thing. When you have a freezer full of stuff it’s painful to watch it all melt and waste. We were lucky enough to have a gas stove, so we cooked a bunch and shared with the neighbors. They, in turn, shared their snacks. And as my very wise girlfriend pointed out, “you have plenty of candles and wine is good at room temperature, too.”

Mom's turn: Got butter?

Today was all about vegging and eating :-D We took the dogs walking down and then back up the mountain…that was a little more than they bargained for when we asked them “you wanna go for a walk?” Half way back up the mountain they were looking at me like I had lost my mind and O’Malley’s tail was dragging the ground behind him. WIMPS! Along the way we found several ripe blackberries so I made a deal with Travis – if he picked them (I have an aversion to thorns) I would make a blackberry cobbler! I didn’t have to twist his arm…he went right back down the mountain and picked every single one in sight. Since I was doing dessert, I thought I would go ahead and do dinner as well with a fabulous chicken pot-pie recipe that I got from GG (with a few alterations). The cobbler is by no means “light” – it contains one whole stick of real butter. Paula Dean would be proud of me!! And of course you need ice-cream to make it complete; that’s where I attempted to make it healthier by going with the “light, low-fat, frozen yogurt.” I’m not sure how many calories it saved, but I can justify it with the fact I got my fresh fruit serving for the day. Doesn’t get any fresher or better than “just picked.” Everyone enjoyed their bowl

Kay enjoying a full belly

as we watched the sunset over the mountains. A fabulous ending to a glorious day.

Travis relaxing with the sunset

I can only hope Teeny’s was as enjoyable. This should have been her first day out hiking!!!