Mother's Day Dinner At Romano's

This morning since it was Mother's Day and I am a mother, my gift to me was this yummilicious banana pudding smoothie. It's my current favorite, so why not. I've only had bunches of these and they haven't gotten old yet.

 

We were headed over to Mom's today with plans to join everyone for dinner at Romano's. As you can probably tell already, they have yummy Italian food, in a home style atmosphere. We stormed the place, with 9 adults and 2 children. Actually we called to make sure there were tables available. There were 2 other large groups there as well, not mention a few couple here and there. I bet the staff sleeps well tonight. We had them hoppin'. 

 As we walked in the door, we were greeted by the littlest chef. Lexi schmoozed him, so that we were seated quickly and at a nice table, several actually.

Here's Mom who was the main focus of today's dinner enjoying her one Sunday of no cooking, no serving, and no clean up afterwards.

Here for our dinner entertainment is Lexi modeling Romano's latest pizza dough sample, which comes in 2 styles, under the nose or......

 

.....over the nose.

 

We did get a couple of partial shots of the dinner party. The other end of the table remains anonymous.

 

I think they thought that if nobody was looking, there wouldn't be any pictures, lol. I manage to escape being photographed, ha, ha, only because Mom forgot her camera.

I almost ate my salad before getting a shot of it. I almost always do that. I did realize it after taking just one bite. You'd think I would be getting the routine down by now. I ate half of my salad with Romano's ranch dressing and saved the rest to take home.

 

I ordered the Spinach Ravioli with marinara sauce and cheese on top. It was very good and I think I liked it better than the baked ziti I had last time I was there. I ate about half of the ravioli as well along with a piece of garlic bread and most of that was before getting a photo, lol. I still managed to wind up very full. 

 

The kids were very good. Mary really enjoyed her spaghetti.

She was also a little camera ham today.

 

Stealing the show with her smile.

 

 

Before leaving the waitress brought all of us ladies each a beautiful carnation for Mother's Day. It was very nice.

 

Mine had a little heart in the middle.

 

After dinner at Romano's we headed back to Mom's for dessert and coffee. She and my Aunt Lynda had 5 flavor pound cake and apple cake. I didn't get pictures of them. Sorry. I barely escaped with a piece of each to take home. Both were yummy. Hopefully, I'll get pictures of those later before they're eaten.

When I got home, I went outside and cut a little grass and then down to the garden to plant a few more plants, which Dale got this morning from the flea market. I will tell you about those tomorrow, since it was getting too dark for photos. 

When I came in I decided to eat some macaroni salad that Mom gave me, along with some fresh broccoli, carrot, and Fiesta Ranch dip. I think I was still too full from dinner and cake. I didn't finish these and I'm still filling stuffed.

 I hope you enjoyed Mother's Day. I know I did, a little too much. Leave a comment, let me know how you spent the day. What was the best thing you ate this weekend? I'm torn between my banana smoothie and the apple cake.

Banana Pudding In A Glass

This morning when I got up, I felt so much better than yesterday. I had a much better attitude and lots more energy. I guess I just didn't get enough restful sleep the other night. I did have breakfast planned before daylight. I guess when I wake up during the night, I have food on the brain and the only way I can get back to sleep is to solve the mystery of what I'll be having for breakfast. I don't understand it myself, anyway, I've come up with a different version of the banana smoothie. My first banana smoothie was the Banana Nut Smoothie with chopped walnuts, brown sugar and cinnamon. The one I made this morning, I'm calling the Banana Pudding Smoothie. It's a creamy combo of vanilla and banana with a couple of vanilla wafers thrown it. It was delicious and I think I like it better than the banana nut smoothie.

What's in the glass

Sliced Fresh Banana

Vanilla Yogurt

Milk

Old Fashioned Oats

Ground Flax

Vanilla Extract

Vanillla Wafers

Ice Cubes

It's super yummy!!!

I got a bunch done today, but only with the help of the A/C. I've been avoiding turning it on, to save money, but with temps in the upper 80's, it's very difficult to get motivated to move, especially when you break a sweat sitting still. After I did some mopping and dog bathing, I fixed some lunch. I made a sort of open faced fish taco with the my leftover Tilapia. My tortilla was a bit too big, so I folded it a little and then just put everything on top. It was pretty messy to eat, but it was very good.

What's on the plate

Leftover Tilapia

Shredded Cabbage

Shredded Carrot

Shredded Bell Pepper

Diced Tomato

Flour Tortilla

After the photos, I topped it all with a little taco sauce.

I went outside and walked around the yard after lunch. I was looking at some of the flowers that have finally bloomed. I decided to take a few photos of them. These are my iris'.  I have a lot more than I did last year. There are lots of buds on the backside that haven't even bloomed yet.

This is my tiny little Azalea bush that's only 2 years old. I thought the drought last summer had killed it. Every leaf on it fell off last year. I plan to keep it watered this year if it gets dry. It's even bigger this year. It's a lot slower growing than I realized.

I love the big pink flowers.

This is my variegated sedum. As you can see, parts of it aren't variegated. I have no idea why, but every year it grows like this. I also have another tiny one that volunteered to come on the other side of the tree where this one is planted in a spot that I had these sitting in a pot, a while before I finally planted them. I didn't get a shot of the little one.

 

Today was Zumba day. I had a Gala apple spread with peanut butter for my pre-Zumba snack. I was really craving peanut butter. I could have stuck my head in the jar and inhaled it. It smelled so good. I'm not sure why I wanted it so bad, but this was the perfect snack today. Some days, I just eat and eat and I'm never quite satisfied, but today wasn't one of those days, thankfully. BTW, I changed my camera settings, when I took pictures of the flowers, then I forgot to change the settings back, so the rest of the photos are sort of wierd. The peanut butter and apple, not so much, but the ones after that look awful.

When I got home from Zumba, I was ready for food. I really needed to eat the rest of my leftover black beans and Spicy Sweet Potatoes. I didn't have anymore pineapple and since I needed to hurry up and finish them off, so instead of using them in a salad, I just had them plain, on a plate. They were still very good, especially the potatoes.

I've done this post entirely with Scribefire. I still have to get use to it, but it was better than blogger I think. Unlike Windows Live Writer, it doesn't have smiley's, but that's not a necessity. It does have more font options than blogger. I put a border around this next photo. Do you think it looks better this way or without? 

The bad thing about Scribefire is the workspace limitations. It would be nice if you had the option to expand it to full screen. I do like being able to see the window behind it though, while working. I usually have my photo page up and can select photos to insert without switching from one page to another and back repeatedly. 

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