Mother's Day Goes Green

            Punky was already staking out my room when Flintstone and I emerged [last] Sunday morning.  I was a little surprised considering the fact that she had kept MacGyver up past when I went to bed completing some sort of Mother's Day surprise for me, and because my unsnoozable alarm clock Flintstone usually sees to it that I am up 1 1/2 to 2 hours before the non lactating members of the household on weekends.

      Waiting for me, there was a vase of roses made entirely out of construction paper and a card.  The card had a woman posing in front of an Earth statue as though she were holding the Earth and inside Punky wrote, "I love you mom.  You're the best and the Earth thanks you for it."  Totally cute.  She had also made me a breakfast of fruit, toast, and cereal.

      MacGyver emerged a few minutes later, and we sat and chatted and drank tea until I went back to the bedroom to get Flintstone's and my clothes together for church.  When I came back out, there was one heck of a spread waiting for me!

       It wasn't actually arranged like this, Punky and MacGyver had each set up their separate collections of gifts on the table, but I didn't get a chance to take a picture of them because Punky was much too excited about me opening them.

       Organic, Fair Trade teas and fancy coffees, adorable stackable coffee mugs, all sorts of chocolate/carmel/nut/fruit ethical treats and goodies, an adorable new Equal Exchange apron (so I get fewer of my ethical eating projects on me), and the topper, new cast iron cookware!  We have been talking about making the switch to cast iron for a long time now, but I've been holding back, waffling about buying it peice by peice or is one big set (which would be very expensive).  MacGyver got me one very large skillet and two small individual size pans.  I've used them a few times now, and I LOVE them.

      I'm sure there will be a post forthcoming soon on the benefits and care of cast iron cookware.

      In addition to store purchased goodies, Punky wrote me three illustrated poems and tied them up scroll style, painted a large painting of our whole family as owls (and Flintstone as a small brown blob, ha), and a book she made in school.  Every page of the book was meticulously colored, and on each page was a question or statement about mothers and all the childrens' answers.  By far my favorite page had the heading, "My mother is as beautiful as..."  Every child in Punky's class except 2 either answered "a flower" or a kind of flower ("a rose" for example).  One child wrote "a horse," which I found wildly amusing.  Punky wrote "Hermione from Harry Potter."

      She is so sweet and creative.  And not only that, but after I told this story to some friends at church, one of them paused, looking at me, and said, "You really do look like Emma Watson."  He probably needs glasses, but I was nevertheless flattered. 

      Punky also got me these super adorable magnets:

             After I was done giddily examining my loot the amazingly thoughtful and moving gifts from my family, we headed off to church.

      The Mother's Day service was amazingly moving, and featured performances by Rebecca Folsom.  Just like the week before, when we got into the sanctuary, Flintstone picked himself out a Hymnal and a seat, climbed into the seat, placed the open Hymnal on his lap, and listened intently.  He was completely enraptured by Rebecca's first song, and I think he was a little shocked by the applause at the end:



     I know people don't like videos on blogs, but the video above is only a few seconds long, and I think it's hilarious.  And there are many more where that came from, including three with Flintstone's fake laugh that he does whenever the congregation laughs.

     After church, we were supposed to go out on a litter cleaning excursion in one of the local rivers, but it was postponed due to rain.  Instead, we went to a bookstore, and I drooled over books I want to read and mourned not having time to just live in a library.

      When we got home, MacGyver and Punky made me an amazing dinner of Massaman Chickpeas over Mango Sticky Rice with Roast veggies.  And a molten chocolate cake for dessert.  Sooo yummy.  Have you seen my post about flavored Chickpeas yet? 

      For some reason the picture of the chickpeas won't load.  Suppose I'll have to add a different post later.

      All in all, it was an amazing Mother's Day.  I have such a wonderful, loving, quirky, family and so very many wonderful mothers in my life (my own mother vehemently refuses to accept Mother's Day gifts from us and cussed at me when I brought it up).

       And who wouldn't love Mother's Day with little monsters as cute as this:

After enjoying a bowl of daddy's homemade, healthy crockpot baked beans from scratch.

Oh, ya' know, just brushin' my teeth...

  
Whether you're a mother yourself, a mother of furbabies, trying to become a mother, or have wonderful mother(s) in your life, I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day this year.