Birthday Season 2014

Wow, it has been a while! We've had quite the whirlwind for the end-of-summer-start-of-fall time period. Among the many things, we've been up to -we traveled across the country, started a new job, had a broken arm, celebrated 4 birthdays, had 2 parties, started school, etc, etc. So we've been busy and this blog has been sorely neglected. With Jason out of town this weekend, I'll make an effort to catch back up - though I also need to do some work on the new job, finish my bookclub book and clean some bathrooms.

So anyway, as part of our busy past two months, we've gone through what we call "birthday season." Just in our immediate family, we have 4 birthdays within 12 weeks (and there are 4 extended family birthdays within those 12 weeks, plus more just before!). With so many birthdays, there are lots of parties and desserts and presents to be had. I'll just catch you up quick on the family birthday celebrations - and hope to detail the two parties (art rainbow! pirate!) that we threw too!

First up was Hayden. She turned 7. I think I mentioned that briefly in an earlier blog. We headed out of town on her birthday, so we celebrated the night before. She chose spaghetti and meatballs for her birthday dinner and chocolate mayonnaise cake for her dessert! She got lots of wonderful presents (thanks everyone!), but I was especially thrilled to give her the collection of Laura Ingalls Wilder books, which I saved for the morning of her 'real' birthday. We both smiled pretty big when she opened them!

the books!

birthday cinnamon rolls (yep, before we left for 4 days, I baked homemade cinnamon rolls)

present from Aunt Lacey - she was really into pandas this summer!

birthday cake!

Molly had the next birthday in late August. She turned 3! We didn't give her a big party (just a few popsicles with her playdate friends) but she had fun at her family party. She chose chicken nuggets and eggs and sausage for her dinner - after going through many, many other choices. And we had poundcake cupcakes with berries and whipped cream for dessert because the girl can put away some fresh berries!

First thing in the morning birthday grin - she loved the decorations we put up for her as a surprise!

Her favorite present was the trampoline from grammy and granddad. (We no longer have this one; we actually traded in for a model that allowed for kids bigger than Molly.) The kids jump on it EVERY day.

opening her very own box of gummies from grandma and popop

blowing out the candles.

Isn't she so grown up now?!!

Then in September we moved on to Jason's birthday. He chose real beef burgers for his dinner (cooked on a new gas grill that was part birthday part dissertation part it's just time present). And we had a chocolate mousse pie for dessert!

birthday boy, his favorite shirt, and chocolate deliciousness

 Then it was Eliza's turn, the last of the family birthdays for the year. She had a hard time picking what she wanted for dinner, or dessert. She finally settled on hot dogs and ravioli, and then we convinced her to save the ravioli for later in the week. I made another mayonaise cake and surprised her by decorating it with a minion!

Eliza and her pile o' presents - she's wearing her new leotard

minion cake!

blowing out the candles (with her new headband on, she wears it every day practically!)

So that was the birthday season. More details to come about Hayden's art rainbow birthday party and Eliza's pirate party. I should mention that in the middle of all this baking and birthday celebrating, I also decided it would be a good idea to host bookclub and for that, I made pavlova since the book was set in Australia. It took me two tries but it turned out quite nice! Bookclub friends said it was very tasty.

pavlova - meringue on the bottom, topped with whipped cream and fresh berries