Happy Birthday to my Sweet Momma

My sister and I tried to pull together a big ole party for my mother, seeing as how it was her 70th birthday this past Sunday.  I guess we didn't try that hard - it was pretty obvious from the first mention of a party that my mom and dad just wanted to hang out with their kids.  So that's what we did.  Margaret and I did spend a week stressing out about what to get her for a birthday gift.  From my dad my mom had asked for Muppets DVDs.  Funny - she's got a thing for The Muppets at the moment.  I can't really blame her.  Anyone who saw the latest Muppet movie had to be as charmed as I was, right?  Anyway, Dad bought her movies.  Margaret and I weren't sure what to do and both of us did a lot of browsing.  I ended up buying her a bracelet. It took me pretty much until I got out of the store and into the car to realize that she wasn't going to really like it, so I returned it a few days later.  Margaret did better with some really yummy natural soaps and lotions and stuff.  But better than that, Margaret hit it out of the ball park.  She had me and both of my brothers email a bunch of photos of our families to be printed up, put in a box and given to mom.  Such a simple gift.  I had a pretty little cigar-box type thing covered in flowers that was just the right size for photographs.  Dad's really good at keeping all the family photos neatly organized on their computer but that's hard for mom to access without help so we thought just a stack of pictures that she could sort through and hold anytime she wanted would be great.  And it was.

We all gathered at Margaret's house on a perfectly gorgeous spring evening.  We had homemade tostadas for dinner and this amazing flourless chocolate cake for dessert.  The kids jumped on the tramp and Margaret's cute girls played Apples to Apples with dad and Stomper and me.  A lovely evening.  Then we gave mom her gifts - the soaps and lotion, some pretty silver earrings.  It was all very nice.  But then she sat down by dad on the porch swing and they opened up the box of photos and promptly burst out crying in delight and happiness.  It couldn't have been a simpler or more perfect gift.  Good job, Margaret, and happy birthday mom.