Cake!!!! and stuff

First of all, thanks to my newsletter readers who answered my poll about my art! I've only gotten 12 responses so far, so if you haven't filled out the poll yet, go ahead and submit it! I'm getting some interesting answers and I'd love to have a larger sample. Maybe I'll send out these types of polls every so often. :)

I have no idea who said what in this poll, and I guess it would have been smart of me to somehow set it up so I know whose answers are whose. (Probably by making you enter your email address, I'm guessing?) Well, I wanted a very low barrier for participation so I made it as simple as possible. Like I said, I'd never made one before! I kind of like not knowing who said what, actually; it's sort of a mysterious feeling of support from everyone. :)

Isn't this a beautiful gift bag?!

C. picked out these birthday bouquets at the grocery store, to combine into her "fireworks"! I don't really like fake-colored flowers, but these sure look AWESOME!! The pink ones also have glitter!

You've gotta click to see all the cakes!!!>>>

Here we have my birthday cake, with the hands of time lovingly set back by my jokester family.

LOL!!!

The kids reused the colored frostings I had made from decorating E's cake, to hurriedly decorate mine, so we could eat it and I could get to watching my Bollywood movie! Kelly came over and watched Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani with me. <3 It was either that or DDLJ, but we'll just have to have a DDLJ screening another time. She's never seen it! Comment if you want to come over and watch DDLJ with me! Singing highly encouraged and must be tolerated (my singing) if you're not singing.

So, C. wanted a crazy half-and-half cake where one side was red velvet and one side was banana. I convinced her to let me make one (cream cheese) frosting for the whole cake endeavor. So what this also meant was that I just MADE TWO CAKES, cut them in half, and swapped halves!

Like this! So I had two of these cakes. One we decorated with her name and candles and enjoyed at her kid party, and the other we've been slowly eating when the mood strikes.

More cakes!! I HIGHLY enjoyed a spontaneous outing with some pals for dinner and cocktails at a fancy restaurant! I consider it a continuation of my birthday celebration . . .

along with . . .

BOOK CLUB!

I love my book club. We did it up as my birthday party, too!

Here are the canapes I made (to go along with the theme of the book) -- we've got sushi-inspired avocado, cucumber, lox, and cream cheese, lightly sprinkled with sweet rice vinegar. Then there are goat cheese stuffed dates with crumbled pecans, a drizzle of honey, and a pinch of kosher salt. (listen to how fancy I sound!) On the right we have the least successful (IMO) one, cantaloupe and smoked gouda with a tiny bit of mango chutney. I would have done prosciutto (and bacon with the dates), but I was avoiding pork for a club member who doesn't do pork.

This cute wine glass holds the wine all the way down the stem!

And here is my beautiful Gregg's cake -- thank you, Brenda!! We lit the candles and everybody sang and everything! Thanks, ladies! You made my birthday really special and fun! ^_^