Cakes and birthdays

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It was Alex’s birthday this weekend and we celebrated the way we’ve been celebrating things around here lately…quietly and with cake. Because you have to have cake. When we were in Kelowna for spring break, we made my mom a scrumptious lemon cake with lemon curd and when it was my sisters’ birthday a month later J wanted to do the same. But it ended up being a bit busy the day they were coming (two weeks after their birthday because that’s how we roll), so I just made a lemon cake with lemon icing.

My head cake decorator had very specific requirements…this cake was blue and orange (although the final result looked pink) with purple icing (that ended up quite grey)

J was in charge of the decorations and she picked the candles. Apparently my sisters turned 211 this year. I’m not sure where that leaves me since I’m the oldest!

The cake ended up quite pretty looking. My oven almost caused a cake disaster…it wouldn’t be the first time…

For Alex’s birthday, I convinced J we could have a “normal” coloured cake, but she got to pick the flavours. Which I got to veto if the combinations were too strange. She settled on a very delicious sounding chocolate cake with peanut butter icing.

She decorated it herself with Reese’s Pieces that we sent Alex to the store specifically to get…and being the awesome daddy that he is, he was shocked and surprised when we presented him with the cake.

The cake was delicious and, due to close monitoring, my oven did not destroy this cake…but I can guarantee that if I did everything exactly the same way next time, I would end up with either a burnt or a raw cake. I miss my old oven…

I would totally make this combination again. It was a hit. I have a go-to chocolate cake recipe, but after sending Alex for Reese’s Pieces I discovered I didn’t have enough cocoa powder, so my friend Mr. Google helped me find a recipe based on how much cocoa powder I did have. And dear Martha came through again. I loved this cake. And it only took one bowl. And normally I’m not a fan of chocolate cake at all…maybe I have a new go-to? The frosting was fabulous…I might play around with it next time…less butter more peanut butter? We’ll see.

YUM!

Birthday Cake with Lemon Curd

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While we were in Kelowna at Spring Break it was my mom’s birthday and J really wanted to make her a cake. So she did. Sort of…she decorated it with sprinkles, but it worked out perfectly. J wanted to make a lemon cake, so we went all out and made lemon cake with lemon icing and lemon curd.

The curd was amazing…you can see it seeping out here and unfortunately that’s the only picture I got of it, but it was soooooooooo good. I used Ina Garten’s recipe and I will be using it again…

We were a bit pressed for time…if I were to do this again, I’d spoon the curd on just before serving, so it could run down the sides. I would just ice the top layer of the cake (maybe the sides of the top layer, I haven’t decied)…although…it was even more delicious the second day when some of the curd had soaked into the cake.

My mom’s second birthday cake was a success!! Yum!

And then she was one…

One year ago, this was the scene in our living room…it was a very exciting time for all of us…

And now, both of those little girls are so much bigger…it’s been one incredible year!

C was super excited about her birthday even though she really didn’t get it…I think she was just excited because her big sister was!

She was not impressed when we took the cake away to be cut up…but she didn’t get as sad as her sister did on her first birthday(s)

And she was pretty happy when the cake finally came back….

She loved opening presents…there were enough gifts that each of her cousins and her sister got to help her open at least once…what a spoiled little lady!!!

Happy Birthday Baby C…can’t imagine not being a family of four!

Five whole years?!

Today this little lady turned 5.

She has grown from a teeny, tiny, cuddly baby into a long-limbed, always-moving, fiercely independent ball of energy with a "special" camera smile.

She loves reading, art, cars (especially Mercedes and anything with both a roof rack and a rear windshield wiper), Cars, [literally] smothering her sister with love, dresses, and dirt. It's hard to believe it has been five years since our lives changed forever and it's hard to remember what life was like before her! Happy Birthday Miss J!

Her daycare does a special birthday walk around the “sun” for the kids. They hold a little globe and walk around a candle once for each year of their life. They bring in a picture for each age to show the other children. Except for the very first picture, these are the pictures J picked this year. J chose her going home from the hospital picture as her “zero” picture.

When she turned 1, she received a ball and it was one of the first gifts she opened. This is J, wondering where the ball went when it was briefly hidden in hope that she would open some of her other gifts.

By the time she was 2, J had perfected her camera smile.

When she was three, she had a birthday in Kelowna (see that camera smile?!?!).

When she was four, she spent a few weeks with my mom and dad and helped them harvest their apricots.

And just last week, J demonstrated that she doesn’t have her mom’s fear of heights as she climbed to the top of the spider web in Mission Creek Park in Kelowna (hmmm…we seem to spend a lot of time in Kelowna!)

Happy Birthday to my little lady!

A bike with no pedals?

J is one happy girl - she got the bike with no pedals she's been requesting for months from Lallie and Bop (her grandparents) last night for her birthday! She's a safety conscious three year old - the second question out of her mouth (after "Can *I* ride it?") was "Where's my helmet?" [She's getting it tomorrow from her other grandparents]

More birthday goodness to come...

It's My Party...

After weeks of birthday parties, this weekend Alex decided to have a half-surprise party for me. He let me know there were people coming over but decided to keep their identities a secret. It was a great group of people from all different parts of our lives and SO MUCH FUN! There were about 15 people crammed into our rather small apartment (I was pining for a yard...) and it was great. There were four little girls and two eight month olds underfoot and I couldn't have been happier. There were definitely good friends and family missing, but until we win the lottery and have a huge house with a yard, I don't expect I'll get to celebrate with all of them at the same time...

Some pictures from the day (the Hipstamatics are courtesy of Aleksandra)

the table waits for food

the table, already laden with food, before all of the food arrived

J is excited there is going to be a party and some of her buddies are coming and there are chips. What could be better?

Little girls playing together [credit: Aleksandra]

J and Inara sharing some secrets [credit: Aleksandra]

my candle extinguishing helper [credit: Aleksandra]

my beautiful cake from Cupcakes [credit: Aleksandra]

Alex knows that tulips are my favourite! [credit: Aleksandra]

check out the eight month old stealing a book to read [credit: Aleksandra]

kissin' cousins [credit: Aleksandra]

two generations of girl cousins [credit: Aleksandra]

What a super day! Thanks for coming everyone....

O Canada flag’s birthday

[UGH…excuse the quality of some of these pictures. We had the camera with us, but I was also using the phone and somehow it reset itself to all the lowest settings between this morning and when we went to Granville Island]

Today is Canada Day…J hasn’t quite got the connection between the anthem, the country and the flag sorted out, but she got the gist of it. She loves all things decorated with the Maple Leaf. She’s very patriotic for someone who isn’t even three yet!



Our first stop was at the tattoo station where we both got tattoos on our cheeks and she would probably have had the guy put the Maple Leaf on every visible piece of skin. She left with three – one on each hand as well. She insisted on no bath tonight so that she could show her tattoos to my parents tomorrow. But there will be a bath tomorrow night.

Then we stopped and listened to some Jazz Festival jazz and watched the throngs of people doing their thing. We bypassed the playground because it looked more like a crumb that had attracted a colony of ants than somewhere kids would find remotely enjoyable.

We walked past the face painting without J registering what it was (there happened to be a very long line up too). And the we went for gelato.



It’s hard to see in this picture, but the line up is really long. Alex went in for our treats and J and I waited.



J found some flags and sang O Canada for anyone interested in hearing a toddler’s version of O Canada. And then Alex came back with the gelato. The line up was surprisingly fast.

If you’re on Facebook with me, you might have seen my status a few weeks ago about sending Alex out to get Smarties to decorate a cake and he returned with two pounds of Smarties.

Well. I specified flavour and cup over cone, but apparently I should also have asked for ONE scoop.
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THREE scoops. It was yummy, but wow was I full…



J quite liked her strawberry ice cream…although it was a bit chilly down by the water.

Happy Canada Day fellow Canadians!

Happy Birthday Pax Lodge

I have a lot to say about Pax Lodge and what better day to say it than on the 20th birthday of that white building in Hampstead.

Well, there is going to be a better day because I need to go to bed instead of blogging.

So instead, a few thoughts and a few pictures. With promises of a few more stories and a few more pictures later. I have lots of pictures...just saying...

Thoughts:

• Pax Lodge was my home during a few of the best years of my life (so far)
• Pax Lodge introduced me to many of the people I consider my closest friends
• Pax Lodge made me happy. Or maybe more, I was happy when I lived at Pax Lodge (that sounds like I'm not happy now...but that's not true either...it's just different)
• Pax Lodge taught me more than I learned during my four year degree
• I miss Pax Lodge. I miss my Pax Lodge ladies
• Look at the happy faces in these pictures...Pax Lodge is a happy place!

Photos: (please excuse the quality or lack of quality of the pictures...our computer is still out of commission and I ended up taking pictures of pictures, not scanning them like I should have...)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAX LODGE!

A very late birthday post

In which a few pictures are displayed. And I get two recipes closer to completing 101 in 1001 challenge 36.12 and 36.13: Try 50 new recipes

So, a couple of months ago it was my dad's birthday.

He came to Vancouver to see us J (my mom came too).


We invited my cousin and her family over for dinner.


J loved baby C.


She took her clothes off and read/sang C Baby Beluga.


I made cake.


Martha Stewart's Versatile Vanilla Cake to be exact. MMMmmm...so good! My mom used to make us a white cake from the Purity Cookbook and it was scrumptious. Well, this one came close. My mom actually thought it was that recipe. But it wasn't. Because that one had shortening in it. This one has butter and a heck of a lot of eggs.


Sooooooooo good!

And the icing was Billy's Chocolate Buttercream, another Martha Stewart recipe. It was soooooo good. I remembered that icing can be frozen, so I froze half of the icing because, holy crap, I generously filled and iced a cake and still had a ton of icing left. Note to self: halve Martha's buttercream recipes in the future!