Sweet Birthday Fun 115/365

I am very loved and very spoiled. I got lots of wonderful gifts today...

A giant cupcake pan, a cupcake making book, a tea pot from England with my favorite rose pattern on it with matching sugar bowl and creamer, my favorite movie and little gold plated tea spoons to match my tea set.  The handles on the spoons are little roses!

I spent most of the day working on my giant cupcake birthday cake. I like baking and I would really like to get better at decorating cakes so I was really looking forward to making my own cake.

It had two layers, the top one yellow and the bottom one rich chocolate with chocolate chips and I made Boston Cream custard for the filling.

It was a very heavy cake and since it was Gluten Free it wasn't as strong... and it kind of didn't make it...

At least my normal sized cup cakes turned out pretty well. I had fun playing with my frosting bag.

Well the cake didn't turn out looking the way I wanted it to, but it was still fun to make and to eat. I learned something about what not to do and now I just need to practice a few more times. Any one want to come over and eat all the cakes and cupcakes I'd like to try out?

Thank you every one for all the love and phone calls. It was a wonderful birthday.

Blood and Birthdays 98/365

Today William gave blood. He's got really special blood that they always want so they asked him to give a little extra.

It's been a long time since I've seen any one give blood, but it seems to have gotten a lot fancier! They have such cool machines now.

This machine takes the blood out, separates it from the plasma, and then puts the plasma back into William! In the end they have a nice bag full of red blood cells and they can take a little more than usual because they put the plasma back. And, since they processed the blood as it was being taken out, it will be ready to be used in accident victims and cancer patients tomorrow! Crazy!

Bonnie Rose thought it was great fun. She enjoyed smiling at all the friendly people.

"Look at my sticker"

Today was also Bonita Rose's 18month Birthday. My baby girl is a year and a half. How did it go by so fast! She was such a little tiny baby ...

And now she's such a big girl.

For her mini birthday we had a tea party. We all put on dress up clothes and tiaras, except William who wore a Bowler hat, and Nana made peanut butter cookies.

We got out my little tea cups from when I was a kid and they were the prefect size for Bonnie Rose.

She was so excited to have her who tea cup to drink out of.

Such a good little girl. Even has her pinkie finger up, her Daddy taught her that.

She drank two whole cups of tea before she even realized there were cookies to be played with. I'm so proud of my little darling and I'm looking forward to many more tea parties to come.

Happy Birthday William! 74/365

Yesterday was William's Birthday. William is my funny and ever so serious husband, and friend. I usually try not to say things like "I'm married to my best friend" because I don't like to take the romantic love I feel for William out of our marriage, and that just doesn't sound romantic to me. But yeah, I don't know what I'd do without him. He's my partner in crime, my fellow adventurer and he's always cheering me on in all of my craziness--even if he is pretending to be appalled by my silliness. He keeps me grounded while I keep him silly and young. He's my biggest supporter and my champion. He's my rock and my sunshine. I love this man. I love this artist.

But enough of this mushy stuff. Let's see some pictures!

Here are some great shots of William when he was a kid. Miriam took some really amazing pictures of him growing up and it was really hard to pick just a few.

Apparently this is how fishermen size up their children.

William on his second birthday. Birthday's are very serious.

I just really love this picture. 

William and I when we were 5. Look at those smiles. It was destiny.

William graduates high school! Which is an accomplishment really since he never went to kindergarten.

So to celebrate this lovely man we had a day out and about. First Baby Girl and I took him out to breakfast. Ok, so really it was more like brunch because everyone should sleep-in on their Birthday.

Actually I really think that everyone should take off work on their birthdays. This was the first year I managed to convince William to that however, but I think he liked it and hopefully we can keep the tradition going. 

Also, you should have Ice Cream for breakfast on your birthday.  

William takes his ice cream very seriously.

After breakfast we drove to Nashville and went to Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Art Museum. 

Everything was in bloom and so so lovely. It was perfect that it was a little rainy because it meant we had the place almost all to ourselves.

We spent some time in the Japanese Garden where the cherry tree was in full bloom and looked heavenly. The whole ground was sprinkled with little pink peddles.

Then we walked the sculpture garden trail. We came upon a sculpture of some animals in a circle and Bonnie Rose spend 20 minutes going from each animal and petting it. I think she would have stayed longer but it was raining.

Then we found the a pet cemetery. We were guessing maybe they were dogs. They had funny names and short lives. The first one in the circle was born in 1928.

Even though it was raining, it was so beautiful to see everything blooming. Spring in Tennessee has so many bright and vibrant colors.

For William's birthday I let him play on his iPhone as much as he wanted. (I'm usually telling him to put the damn thing down as it's impossible to have a conversation with him when it's always in front of his face.) This is what he looked like all day long.

After Cheekwood we met up with Anandit and Albert one more time for dinner and had some wonderful Indian food. It was good to spend time with friends and especially with people who appreciate William. We made wishful plans to visit Shanghai with them someday.

When we got home we were very exhausted but there was still some birthday celebrating to do. Bonnie Rose helped her Nana back a cake, and licked the mixers, and then made a card for her Daddy.

We put 3 and 2 candles on the cake for 32.

William wanted a chocolate cake with lemon frosting on it. He made his own frosting and my mom made the cake. It's not a combination I would suggest trying. But the cake was good and the frosting was good...separately.

We ended a very long day with cards, gifts and cake and then we all fell into bed. I hope William had a good birthday and I hope he feels loved and appreciated. Because he is.

So that was the first day of celebrating William's birthday. We still have a whole weekend ahead of us for lots more celebrating, rain or shine. 

Happy Birthday William.

A Night With the Oscars 50/365

every party needs good food

 Sunday night was Oscars night.  I had been looking forward Oscars night for a very long time. Pretty much as soon as we decided we were going to move back to America I told William "and we can have an Oscars party!"

Obviously we could not watch the Oscars while we were in China, though two years ago I did spend two days downloading as many videos of Hugh Jackman (yummy yummy) hosting them as I could.

As with any time I plan a party we had way too much food, especially since it was just the three of us, plus baby, at the party.

Some of the dishes I picked because they represented nominated movies, and other dishes we just wanted because they were yummy.

Here's what we ate at our party.

Social Network Marinated Tomatoes and Olives.

 It's just three different kinds of olives, tomatoes and garlic with Balsamic Vinegar. It was very yummy.

The Kings Speech Cheese Ball

 Ok, this was something we just wanted to eat. But it's nutty and cheesy and you eat it with crackers so I thought it would do for The King's Speech. I originally wanted to make chocolate chip scones but that didn't end up working out. The cheese ball however was amazing! William did a really good job making it. It has onions, bbq sauce, pimento-stuffed green olives, and cured beef. It was all Gluten Free of course.

The Fighter Oyster Shooters

 This is something that William's family introduced me too and I totally love. We got the oyster sauce with extra horseradish so it had extra kick to it. Thus, The Fighter.

Black Swan Pavlova

This dish is the one I'm most pleased with. It was invented in 1926 in New Zealand. It was made for and named after the Russian Ballet dancer Ánna Pávlova.
It is simply heavenly. I think it's my new favorite dessert of all time.

127 Hours Mocha Cupcakes

Really, what's a party without cupcakes? I really wanted to make Oscar cupcakes with little Oscars on top of them. But there was a printer problem so instead I put flags of the Academy Award categories.  I added a shot of espresso to the chocolate cake batter,  which is why they are 127 Hour cupcakes. You know, if you have to stay awake for 127 hours you might need some espresso.

To drink we had:
The Kids Are Alright Cabernet Sauvignon

 I'm not sure if you drink this because you want to think the kids are alright or because they are actually all right. But it's my favorite wine so that's what we had.

 And finally,
Inception "Champagne" (really it was sparkling apple cider)

 Because Champagne is dreamy.

It wouldn't be an Oscars party without some glamor. So we all dressed up and took pictures in front of our "Banksy" wall.

Even baby had fun watching the show for awhile. She was even allowed to have a bit of cupcake, as you can see from the frosting still on her face.

 But then she went to much more entertaining things for her ... shapes and colors.

 Over all it was a very fun evening. Even William enjoyed the party. Maybe the wine had something to do with it, or maybe it was because we didn't have a large, or any, crowd.

 Baby got to have a sip of Nana's Champagne. (It was actually sparkling apple cider!)

 We had so much fun playing along too. Before the show started we each watched as many trailers as we could and my mom even read about each documentary and short.
We each made our predictions and kept a score sheet. It makes the whole show much more fun when you can follow along this way.

Over all, it was a great party and we all enjoyed the show. There were some great moments and some fun speeches and we all learned about movies we want to see now.

This was my most favorite speech of the night...Click Here.

We are looking forward to next year's show and already planning for next year's party. I think I'll make Chocolate Oscars next year.