My mom

I have been reminiscing over the last few days about some of my mom's favorite things so that I will remember to share these with Mavis.  My mom took pleasure in the little things.  She loved lime ricky's when we were in Utah, now also one of my favorites. Rootbeer milk shakes, salt water taffy, black licorice, wintergreen peppermints...she always had them with her.  She  loved popcorn and would eat a whole bag by herself.  My mom enjoyed taking walks with her grand puppy Indy.  She enjoyed swinging on the swings.  She loved eating at Eat n' Park and she would take us there often.  Sometimes she would take me late at night for soup when I was in high school, potato soup and super burgers were her favorite.  She enjoyed Shamrock shakes during Saint Patrick's day.  She liked caramel and loved divinity.  We tried to make it one time using my Grandma's recipe and it ended in a distastorous sticky mess, not light and fluffy as it should be.  She loved bear claws and almond tort cake from Dudt's bakery.  She really loved to eat klondike bars and would always have them in the freezer.  She really loved cool whip and I feel like we always had some in the fridge.  Zach and I would sneak spoonfuls all the time growing up.  She always enjoyed a good chocolate chip cookie and made delicious cut out cookies that I would help decorate every Christmas.  I can't wait to do this with Mavis one day, knowing how much more fun it would have been for us all to do this together.  She loved to lick the beaters when making cakes, frosting, and brownies and sometimes would let us share.  She loved stuffing at Thanksgiving and always thought her recipe was the best...and it was always our family's favorite.  She loved pistachio pudding and I will miss it dearly.  My mom liked to swim and I had so looked forward to many days of swimming with Mavis.  My mom would take us to the Zelie pool to swim when we were little and Mavis so far shares her love of swimming.  My mom started taking me to swim lessons when I was 5 months old.  I took Mavis to the pool for the first time when she was 3 months old.  She also loved a good ice cream sandwhich.  She would always have some on hand, especially the chocolate cookie ones for Mark when we would visit.  My mom loved smores and we would sometimes roast marshmellows over the grill when we were little to make them.  She loved to have hanging baskets of flowers around the house with petunias and impatients.  When I was little I would help her to plant them around the trees in our front yard, usually pink.  Somehow my mom always had the most full and beautiful hanging baskets all around the deck.  My mom liked riding a bike and would ride bikes with us around the neighborhood all of the time when we were little.  I also LOVED riding my bike with her.  She loved going to the dairy queen for ice cream in the summer for a special treat.  She loved to make her mom's shrimp pasta salad, which she said always tasted best with sweet memories pickles.  She developed a shell fish allergy a few years ago and could no longer eat any shrimp.  Her favorite candy bars were big hunks and paydays.  She also enjoyed a milky way now and then.  She loved dove dark chocoloate candies and would usually have them in the fridge.  She liked orange sherbert and we almost always had orange sherbert and chocolate fudge Popsicles in the fridge when we were growing up.  She loved to drink a Pepsi, although every once in a while would sneak in a coke.  My mom loved crystal light iced tea and we always had it growing up.  Every once in a while she would make sun tea for us in the summer on the deck.  She loved banana cream pie, especially my Grandma's.  She made the best banana cream pie I have ever had.  She loved watching General Hospital and we would always watch it growing up, she still watches it to this day.  She liked to take me to the library to pick out books when I was little and would take me to story time at the library.  Her favorite gum was spearmint, a flavor my brother would always complain about.  She liked Carmex chapstick.  She loved coconut cake and made the best I have ever tasted.  She also loved toffee and my aunt's 'better than sex' chocolate cake which consisted of heath bars and caramel drizzled over it.  My mom liked to roller skate and ice skate.  She would take us to both when we were young.  In recent years she loved getting pedicures and she loved massages, which she never experienced enough of....I wish I would have taken her more. For her first mother's day as a Grandma I treated us to massages and pedicures then lunch at one of her favorites, Harold's.  My mom liked to go to the mall, JC Penny was her favorite.  She liked orange Julius and I learned to love them, making them together sometimes at home.  She loved banana nut bread.  She liked to eat cherries, and loved to make strawberry shortcake with angel food cake in the summer.  She loved to watch dancing with the stars and NCIS.  She enjoyed watching movies and it makes me sad that I don't really know her favorite. I do know that she loved all of the cheesy JLo movies and Julia Roberts movies.  I remember the first movie she took me to at the theater was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.  She took me to see my first PG-13 movie, Ghost, and I loved spending this time with her.  She already bought Mavis her first movie, Frozen, and we all watched it together.  Mavis was enthralled with the movie.  She loved to chew ice and would always be crunching on it in the evenings when we were watching TV...it drove us nuts.  Eventually my dad also picked up this habit.  She loved good corn on the cob and we would always buy it fresh from the farm stand in the summer time.  My mom was a talker and loved to talk on the phone to her family and friends.  My mom liked to color and was very good at shading and keeping in the lines.  We used to color together a lot when I was little.  She loved her Grandma necklace that I gave her after I had Mavis and would wear it every day since I gave it to her.  She was wearing it in the last pictures ever taken of her.  She loved her birthstone, november topaz.  She loved to ski and was even very good at it in her fifties when we finally went out west together.  She loved to water ski and was always good at it.  I remember she was so disappointed her last trip to bear lake last summer when she wasn't able to get up on her skis. My mom loved to play Uno and Yahtzee. She loved white shoulders perfume and Jasmine Vanilla bath and body works. The first perfume she ever let me have was Sweet Honesty(Avon). If you remember any of my mom's other favorite things, please add them for me :).  Love you mom.