Mama’s 60th Birthday

My wonderful mother celebrated her 60th birthday yesterday. 🙂 Thank You God for blessing me with an angel for a mommy. She is the most beautiful, kindest, most prayerful woman I know. I love her so much. 🙂

(pic taken when I was 1 1/2 years old and Mama was 31)

I don’t have any party pics to show because she opted not to have a grand celebration. My original plan was to throw a party for her at my uncle’s beach resort. Ayaw daw niya. Gusto daw niya simple lang. ‘Wag daw kaming makialam. Siya daw ang may birthday so siya ang masusunod. Ma’am, yes ma’am! I thought we were going to Subic to eat lunch and watch a movie like what we do when it’s Daddy’s birthday but she said she just wanted to cook some of her favorite dishes and give them to our relatives and neighbors.

It was also a blessing that we didn’t go out anymore because I suffered from fever (with chills! scary! :S) from Saturday to Monday. I think God just took pity on me when I asked Him to make me well because I didn’t want my Mama to worry about me when she should be stress-free on her birthday.

We cooked and gave away food a day before her birthday. She didn’t want to do it on Feb 22 because it’s Ash Wednesday. Here are some of the food we made:

Chunky Chicken Macaroni Salad. The one you see in the picture is the sald before I mixed everything together. This is Mama’s specialty savory salad. Her dessert salad specialty is Chunky Buco Pandan. Yeah, we like our salads chunkee! Funny coz I was the one who taught her how to make these, but she does it much better than me. 😛

Maja con Quezo. This was supposed to be maja blanca topped with latik (fried coconut milk curd)  but we were to tired to make latik that we used cheese instead. Mama makes excellent maja. This has been a fave of mine since childhood. 🙂

Suman sa Lihiya. This is soaked glutinous rice treated with lye. Mama’s besty Tita Nida made this as a gift for Mama. Well, at least she attempted for it to be a surprise, pero fail kasi sa amin siya humingi ng banana leaves na pambalot. So, buking! :p I brought a dozen suman to the office with grated coconut and sugar. Was too lazy to get panocha. :p

Bibingkang Kanin. This was Mama’s birthday(rice)cake. Haha she detested my suggestion that we put candles on it. :p When I was still a little Iya, I’d scrape off the sweet sauce on top and give the rice cake to Mama. Haha, salbaheng anak ko lang talaga dati. :p This is my favorite kakanin after bibingkang malagkit aka bibingka that we usually see during Christmastime.

Pansit Bihon: Our quintessential birthday dish because they say it represents long life and because we just really love pansit. :p And even if I was suffering from toncilitis, Mama allowed me to drink Coke because it sucks to eat pansit without Coca-Cola. 😀 And reward ko kasi napagod ako sa kakahalo ng 3 kilo ng pansit!

I’m glad that Mama got what she wanted, a simple celebration spent with me and Daddy. She also got a pretty yellow blouse and fab clutch bag from me. :p I stayed home until early morning of her birthday. Haha, I demanded a picture before I left for Manila. Kebs na kung bagong gising at nakapantulog pa. Here it is:

That’s one of the best mornings of our lives. 🙂 Thank You God for giving us Mama! 🙂

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listening to: The Beatles – I Will

Posted by Iya Santos on February 23, 2012

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