It was Mother's Day the day after Dad Pham's 67th birthday. To celebrate, Little Sissy Pham nearly ran over Dad Pham with her car - I assume to honour Mum Pham's memory by taking out her living competition? Sissy Pham reckons she technically only nearly knocked him over with a part of her car (the open door)… yeah, because there's a real difference. Either way, she nearly killed our father the day after his birthday.

I used a less aggressive approach to Mother's Day. I took inspiration from the awesome Book of J.E.M. my friends made me and made a photo memory book to give to my Sister-Not-In-Law, the mother of the two most beautiful nieces an overbearing Aunty could ask for.  I've taken some hilarious, sweet, cute, crazy, embarassing photos of the girls over the past 8-9 years. My goal was to mortify them on their 21st birthdays but the photos came in handy earlier than anticipated.

I viewed and mapped and planned and counted and culled and edited and printed and cut and pasted then decorated 233 photos into a 50-page craft book for the whole day. It took about 10 hours in total and one nearly burst blood vessel when Mini-Me (niece #2) tried to help and messed up my OCD-quality ordered stack of photos (Big Brother Pham had to herd her away before I died from self-restraint) but we got there in the end!
I wish I'd taken a photo of the finished product with all the Pham's handwritten notes inside the cover but by the time I remembered to, Little Sissy Pham had already gift wrapped it. You'll just have to trust me when I say the PhamLe Mother's Day book of 2012 is awesome.

We also did a Buddhist cermonial prayer for Mum Pham, which Dad wants to make our new tradition because it's happier than the annual ceremony we'll do for her day of passing. The ceremony involves incense, sending love to mum and eating food so I'm all for it. Hope everyone had a nice Mother's Day too!