Mother's Day

It's not easy to shop for Mom. She doesn't like useless things like cards, flowers, and balloons. She hates over-priced novelty jewelry like Pandora. Her favorite gift is good food, but she's very hard to impress in terms of quality and value.

I think we won this year's Mother's Day though!

1) Jewelry
M got Mom a very cool and pretty 3-piece convertible necklace set to match her turquoise-and-red-jade earrings. I'm sure she'll love it!

via chloe+isabel

2) Tea + Novelty

I gave Mom a jar of tea I bought at the little tea shop in the mall. Like the new LCS, I was unaware of their opening almost a year ago, so it was another pleasant surprise. They had a wonderful assortment of teas and blends to personalize for a variety of tastes, fragrances, colors, and health benefits. I chose the Ice Berry blend, natural, lightly sweet, refreshing, and high in anti-oxidants. The Mother's Day special included a free glass jar with purchase, plus they added a sample of Moroccan Almond, warm, soothing, with a hint of almond biscotti (which Mom likes). In addition, I found a little Wonder Woman plushie at the mall and couldn't resist. Even though Mom has a bunch of tea already and doesn't usually like gifts you can't use, she seemed pleased with them (as opposed to immediately asking how much or why). She even went "aww" and kissed the Lil Wondy! o_0 ^_^

via Hallmark

3) Fooood

R treated Mom (and me) to lunch at Woody's BBQ. It was our first time eating there, and we were happy with it. For Mother's Day, they gave every mom a carnation and an $8 voucher for the next visit. Sweet. The food was pretty darn good! Lately, we've been disappointed with Sonny's; their BBQ has been overdone and shrunken, probably because they're so busy. We ate at Woody's right when it opened, so that may be why it was so fresh and tasty.

R ordered the onion rings and fried squash appetizer. Mom thinks they have bigger and better onion rings, and the fried yellow squash was surprisingly good, crispy but not too greasy. Mom tried their signature baby back ribs with BBQ beans and fries. R had beef brisket with fries and green beans. I ordered the pork sampler with BBQ pork, pulled pork, 2 spare ribs, and a pork sausage, with BBQ beans and coleslaw. All the meats were really yummy, well-cooked, juicy, flavorful, and with good sauce. Their beans are closer to canned BBQ-style pork-and-beans than Sonny's, which seem to have more of the smoky, pulled pork flavor. The coleslaw was about the same but not as moist. I liked Woody's fries better than Sonny's thick-cut fries. I prefer fries thinner, crisper, and not so starchy. Like Sonny's, the meal came with garlic toast, but it was only buttered on one side, so not as oily but not as tasty. The dessert display with the "Sky High Pies" caught our eyes, so we tried a slice of their Oreo Cream Pie. The filling was twice as high as the crust, a thick heavy cream mixture, like the consistency of whipped cream mixed with cream cheese, but we didn't taste any cream cheese. Anyway, it was quite yummy, but not quite impressive enough to order again. But overall, we're very satisfied and eager to Woody's again to see if the quality holds up.

(not our actual meal but a lot of the same foods)

The good food definitely helped create a good mood, too, even with some lingering tension from disagreements. Guess love for family and love for food are the glue in this family. ;P

Actually, a couple days before, R had already bought dessert from a local bakery we'd never tried. We were stuffed after lunch, so we nibbled on those treats hours later, along with the plate of leftover BBQ. R got a slice of turtle cheesecake (turtles are Mom's fav), plus an orange cupcake with espresso cream filling. They were superb. Of course, Mom said the cheesecake was too sweet, but R and I don't think so. We've had much sweeter cheesecakes from Sam's or Aldi. I think the flavor and consistency were just right. The cupcake was perfectly moist, not dry and boring like most cupcakes. It was almost like an orange sponge cake with a subtle coffee-flavored cream. Mmm...

(not the actual cupcake we ate but very similar in appearance)

Fashion, food, fun, family, and best of all, Mom happy. Yup, we nailed it this year. :D <3