Mama's Visit: My Birthday

Tuesday being my 29th Birthday, Mama treated me to afternoon tea at Eddison and Melrose, in Monterey.  We enjoyed a lovely meal, and then ventured over to the mall for a little birthday shopping!

We came home and made my daddy's famous margaritas (mango) along with chicken enchiladas and my favorite birthday cake (angel food with cool whip and strawberries) and raspberry sorbet!  I opened my gifts and was overwhelmed with the amazing loot I received!

Before she died, my Mamaw sent me a check from she and my Papaw.  I used it to buy a gorgeous tablecloth and matching napkins by April Cornell.  Mama bought me a fabulous tangerine handbag.  Hubs and Bunkey bought me new running shoes and a Staub cast iron French oven (no, not Dutch, since it's really the French style of cooking!).  My brothers gave me a shell necklace that I found in Santa Cruz (Mama let them know she was doing their shopping!) and a kit to turn a wine bottle into an outdoor oil lantern.  Probably the biggest surprise was the choice of what to do with my Nana's birthday check...  Nana was a home-ec major and a fabulous seamstress (she made me several dresses and Halloween costumes over the years).  She, my mom, and my MIL have been "on my case" for years about how I need to have a sewing machine to do easy little projects like hemming Hubs's pants.  So, when Mama arrived and I asked her if she'd help me fix (by hand) the seams on a shirt that had ripped, she offered to just take it home and make the repair properly on her sewing maching.  Of course, she chided me, saying that I really needed a little sewing machine so I could do this myself.  I think I gave her heart failure when I suggested she help me choose one to buy with Nana's birthday check and then show me how to use it!  Well, we found a great little machine at Target, made me a basic sewing basket with supplies from Michael's, and last night I fixed that seam all by myself!