Well, I planted the Calla Lily my sister and her family gave Michael and I for Easter! I’m sooo excited because it is supposed to be a hardy perennial for my area! Yay!!!

I know it doesn’t look all that great but I’m sure it will do just fine. Those short green stems/leaves coming up are lilies that I got for Mother’s Day a few years ago. It’ll be nice when they bloom.

I love how things progress around here. I have my Bradford Pear Trees and Daffodils (Narcissus) begin the beauty. Then the irises and sweet williams and whatever these beauties are called.

I really love the purple/magenta colored flowers but I’m noticing that I need to get some other perennial colors too. I do have white and brown mums that will be blooming shortly; they are currently a mass of green.

This ugly flower bed will be looking much nicer next week because for Mother’s Day I get flowers AND labor (of planting the flowers and weeding the flower bed). It has been several years now and I just love it! I get to have some really pretty blooms for a long time.

Tiffany thinks we have some sunflowers coming up all by themselves. I hope so. We had my parents over for dinner on night last week; we hadn’t seen them since Easter. I made a ham with some creamed garlicy cauliflower and a side salad. Unfortunately I overheated the ham and forgot about regular salad dressing for the salad, as we generally just use olive oil and seasonings. I did make a delicious brownie with a praline topping. To all of our surprise, my parents even liked it and they don’t generally like my desserts because they are sweetened with xylitol, erythritol, and stevia. My cauliflower was very creamy but still tasted like cauliflower and my parents do not prefer that. I’ll do better next time though.

Mom brought me some of her yellow irises and some of her purple irises! I finally got them planted.

I had a birthday last week too. Tiffany worked hard doing for me what I do for all of them on their birthdays.

She made delicious chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast.

Yes, there are pancakes beneath all the chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Yummo! Before Trim Healthy Mama I was never one for chocolate or even chocolate chip pancakes, but now they are one of my favorites! I love that I still get to have so many delicious pancakes and waffles–if I couldn’t, this lifestyle of eating would not be sustainable.

We have baked blueberry pancakes, banana pancakes, baked pecan pancakes, waffles, and chocolate chip pancakes. We also have a few others that we throw in from time to time, like the strawberry ones we had a few weeks ago.

For lunch she made some yummy Philly Cheese Steak open face sandwiches (I’d made the Wonderful White Blender Bread) and green “fries”.

Recipe will be coming on a future Tuesday for that deliciousness.

We had our dessert in the afternoon because I really am still trying to lose weight and it is best to have the heavier snack earlier in the day. So she made me a cream filled chocolate bundt cake with chocolate drizzle.

She had quite a bit of cream left and piped it all over the cake but in the future we will put more of it inside (about every inch or so). It was yummy!

For dinner we had Meatloaf Skillet with roasted veggies. I adore roasted veggies and they were different than the green “fries” we’d had with lunch.

Well, I’ve rambled on enough for one day. I do have some pictures to share from when Tiffany and I went into town last week with a cute story but I’ll save it for another time.

Mother’s Day is this weekend in the United States of America, so that means Brian, Lauren, and Liam are coming!!!! Whoo hoo!!!! So there will most likely be Liam pictures next week. We’re celebrating our beginning of May birthdays Sunday as well. So, we’ll celebrate my birthday, my niece Macie’s double digit birthday, and my father’s birthday too. Oh but don’t be fooled, that isn’t all the birthdays we have this month though. Tiffany’s is at the end of the month and my mother’s is the beginning of June. It’s crazy how quickly it all rolls by.

Here is a picture of our crazy family, well the Oklahoma part of it (my middle sister and her kids, which includes Sarah,  and grand kids live in Missouri and seldom make it back).

I’m so thankful for my momma! My dad was gone a lot when I was little and my mom still got us to church every service and managed with him gone . . . I don’t know how she did it. She taught herself to play the organ, played in church most of her life, and taught me to sing–no literally, I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket but she worked and worked with me until I could, I’m forever grateful. She was my best friend for many many years! She comforted me when I was heart broken and encouraged me to be all that I could be. So much of what I am today is thanks to her.

I remember a few years after Michael and I were married we had several trips to the emergency room. I’d called her because I was scared and wanted her to pray and even though it was the late at night at least on one occasion, she got up, got dressed, and met us there just to sit with me in the waiting room. Any time any of us need her, she is right there. I tried not to call on her too often, after all I was a grown-up. But to this day I know if I need her, even in her 70’s, she’ll still come as quickly as she can.

I’m so blessed to have such a wonderful mom. I hope you won’t let the weekend go by without showering your mom with some love (if you are blessed as I am and still have her with you on this earth).

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº