US Immigration from Colombia

This is for a friend of mine. My friend is a USC, her mother had a LPR status, had 2 babies (one of them my friend) but, went back to her country for many years, she understood her status was probably treated as abandonment so, she applied for a tourist visa and, she got it. that is how she is traveling in to the country now to visit my friend and her grandson. Now she retired and wishes to be close to family. My friend asks if would it be possible to reassume her mother's previous status as LPR or should my friend just reapply for a new green card and, if she should reapply would the process be the same? (filing I-130, NVC, etc.) or is she supposed to use different forms since her mother already had a green card. My friend and her sister both live and work in the US for several years now and have the financial means to sponsor their mother.

Thank you for your responses

My wife and step-daughter have 2-year green card and have applied for 10 year permanent residence last year. They each received a 24 month extension to Green Card expiration while the application is being reviewed. Has anyone had problems traveling outside U.S. and reentering with expired Green Card with 24m extension? We want to go to Spain this summer but want to be confident no problem returning.

We had our AOS interview on 2/14 and were told that it would be approved; however as of today 3/5, the case tracker still has not updated and reads "Interview Scheduled." From reading on the forum, it seems that most people get an update on the case tracker within a few days or even 24 hours to show "Approved."

Is this something I should be concerned about? Is this more common than I am aware?

To clarify further, I am not talking about the time from interview to receiving the greencard (though we are definitely eager to get the greencard in order to be able to visit family), rather I am talking about the case status. I'm assuming that we will have to wait a few weeks once the case updates to finally receive the greencard. Hopefully I'm wrong!

On the application, do we put legal alien allowed to work or legal alien not allowed to work? I'm assuming the latter because our ead application is pending? But then it asks for a document from a government agency explaining why we need a ssn. What have people done for that? Thanks.

We have my husband's green card interview next month and are prepping the paperwork. I changed my last name since we filed. Should I update my name on the forms to match my current name? Any other tips?