Families R Built with Love

We have duly partied for Kirsty's 50th birthday! KC and Lissa and I did the decorations this a.m. while everyone else was at church. Actually it was truthfully mostly KC and I but Lissa put in her 2 cents worth from her queen bee place of sitting in her high chair and watching. KC really feels punky with his cold or whatever it is and stayed in his PJ's all day, but despite that wanted to "party" with all his little heart and soul. His only real heartbreak was that I would not let him help decorate the cake. In fact, I wouldn't even let him be in the kitchen with his streaming nose and yucky cough while I was doing the decorating. But he eventually decided he could make his card for Mom while I did that and this compromise worked well. The cake in question is a from scratch chocolate two layer cake with raspberry filling and home made frosting. I am told it is to die for. I am allergic to chocolate and have never in my life eaten this cake though I have made it millions of times. Sadly I am deficient in 2 keys cooking areas. Pie crust and frosting. This means Kirsty made the frosting for me before she went to church but I did the decorating!

The dining room always looks festive when we decorate and Kirsty said what she loved was that we made her feel like she had a spring birthday when she has always felt a bit down about the fact that she didn't. I was going to try and post some more pictures of the way things looked, but I am not particularly facile with technology. See that nifty blank space between the paragraphs? Well that was where I WANTED to put the pic of the butterfly and flower mobiles that hung from the light fixture. Picture them, a promise of spring, twirling in the breezes (our house is drafty folks!) Next to that picture was going to be the full out picture of the dining room table with all the place settings. You can at least see the pic at the top with the napkin rings Robbie made.

Ah that empty spot? That was for the picture of the giant balloon we put over her chair. We filled it up with a helium tank and the coolest thing was that you could record something in the balloon. From my kid's perspective the fact that then you have to bash the balloon to make it say "happy birthday" was a double bonus. Lots of balloon bashing going on.

Lots of party horns. Yummy Chinese food for Kirsty and I. She is a traditionalist and always orders the same thing. General Tso's chicken. Chicken or pork fried rice. Me, I order something different everytime. Today I tried a dish called vegetable chow ho foon. Wide rice noodles with lots of yummy veggies. I had a spring roll with it and ordered some tofu veggie soup so I would have something for lunch later in the week. Not that we can't make soup but I have never been able to really replicate good chinese tofu vegetable soup.

There are invisible pictures here of happy children who are not eating chinese food. Wise parents do not destroy the party mode when their kiddos totally loathe a particular style of food. (laugh) I did vegetarian chicken for them, rolls and carrot sticks. Periodically they would take a break from eating and blow their horns out at each other. Even Chet adores party horns. He did so well too holding it together.

Kirsty loved her gifts, mostly jewelry from the kids and I. She also got a gift certificate for make up from her favorite store from Chet and light up knitting needles from me. I saw these at a craft store and though I don't knit, they just seem so incredibly cool. When we go camping she likes to knit and it is sometimes hard to have enough light for her and not disturb sleeping children. Now she should be set even in a power failure! :-) Someday no doubt I will figure out how to add pictures throughout a post. For now, words are sooooo much easier!