birthday

Mani Monday

Since Chickadee just celebrated her birthday, I let her pick the colors for my most recent mani. She chose her favorites, “Sparkling Water,” the recently retired “Lemon Spritzer,” and “Lavender Syrup,” from the Holo Taco Pastel Rainbow collection. The pastel collection is probably my favorite thing from Holo Taco…even though I tend to like darker nail polishes, these are just so beautiful, and catch the light so wonderfully…I’m even including a bonus photo taken in direct sunlight so you can see the beautiful rainbows that show up!

Almost a Teenager!

Today is the last time we’ll celebrate a child’s birthday who is not a teenager or adult, because Chickadee is now 12…almost a teenager!

We started the day with presents (of course):

We watched all three Descendants movies on Disney+ for the first time at Chickadee’s request…I really enjoyed the stories, the music, and the dancing! After that, I made her birthday dinner, which included recipes from Sonic the Hedgehog: The Official Cookbook. She picked “Pure Hydrocity,” a lovely blue drink featuring blue raspberry, lemon, and mint, and “Villain Subs,” featuring four kinds of Italian lunchmeat, homemade pickled onions, and hardboiled eggs. Both were delicious!

She asked me to make a Dalek-themed birthday cake…I think it turned out pretty well, and we had the perfect props!

The only downside to this birthday is that we all know Bunny has to go back to college tomorrow…but we’re so glad she could be here for both birthdays this week, and I had so much celebrating Chickadee’s special day today!

21!

I can’t believe it, but today is Turkey’s 21st birthday! We actually celebrated yesterday, starting with opening gifts after church. I was especially excited about the Steamboat Willie pocket watch we gave him:

Since we had already changed the day we were celebrating, we also flipped the order of things around, and had his birthday (cheese)cake at lunchtime. He chose a Black Forest cheesecake, which is one of my favorite new recipes:

For dinner, as is tradition, I made a turkey dinner, complete with stuffing, cranberries, mashed potatoes, cauliflower (his favorite), and rolls. He requested the “Piko Piko Slammer,” a type of pink lemonade with notes of lemongrass and grapefruit, from our new Sonic The Hedgehog Official Cookbook to go with dinner, too.

It really doesn’t seem possible to me that one of my children is already 21…I remember it all just like it was yesterday. Those years certainly did fly by quickly, and I’m so proud of the young man I get to call my son!

18 Already!

It’s hard for me to believe, but Moose’s 18th birthday was yesterday!

Since he had a busy school day, we split the celebration over two days. He waited until after school to open his presents…Lego is still one of his (well actually all of ours) favorite things!

He had a late day at school, so he picked something quick and simple for dinner…chicken patties and mac ‘n’ cheese (I added the green beans so we could pretend there was a healthy component to the meal!). It was excellent timing, because yesterday was also National Fried Chicken Sandwich day!

And we had his cake on his actual birthday, which worked out well, because there enough left for round two today!

Today he had off of school, so he spent the day relaxing and doing some of his favorite things. And tonight, for the first time in about four years, we went to Red Robin for dinner!

I can’t believe that 3/5 of my children are now legal adults, but I have loved seeing the people they have become as they’ve gotten older, and I can’t wait to see what’s next for Moose!

Only Nineteen (But Her Mind is Older)

Today is Bunny’s 19th birthday! We started the day with a “Bunny Walk.” We had quite a bit of rain overnight, so we didn’t see as many bunnies as we would have on a drier morning, but we still saw about a half-dozen or so, which was a good way to begin Bunny Day!

As always, present-opening was the highlight of the morning. There was a dual theme of Star Wars‘ Ahsoka Tano and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

We watched some movies this afternoon, and I worked on dinner. She asked for the apple punch from The Brothers Grimm Cookbook that we enjoyed a few weeks ago to go with her traditional birthday dinner of Stromboli:

This year’s bunny cake was based on The White Rabbit from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I don’t think I got his expression quite right, but he was pretty easy to decorate!

It was a very fun day celebrating Bunny!

Sartorial Saturday–The Linen Love Continues

Earlier this season, after a long-standing “no linen” policy for my wardrobe, I decided to give a linen dress from Miss Candyfloss a try, and it quickly became one of my favorite pieces. Well I’m back with a second linen dress, the Rebecca-Pia, in the same checkered pattern (but different color), and with my favorite neckline/bodice!

It’s so light and lovely for summer!

I added a sunhat (very practical for summer) and gloves (not so practical, but they look nice!) to my double stack of Splendette duchess bangles:

Since I wore this dress for the first time on my birthday, I made sure to pair it with my Erstwilder birth flower brooch…luckily for me, they’re a good match!

I love the muted shade of pink of the dress!

The one thing I will say about linen is that I find it a bit scratchy…it’s definitely not as smooth as cotton or some of the blends of my other dresses. But it is cool for summer, and once I embraced the fact that it wrinkles, pretty worry-free!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my birthday!

It wouldn’t be a celebration for me if I didn’t get to hang out with Roald:

Apparently Grimace is celebrating his birthday right now, too, so Ryan went out and got me a special birthday shake…it was surprisingly good!

We watched a couple of my favorite movies today, including Cars, which I’ve been thinking about ever since we went to Disney’s California Adventure. I also wanted to wear my new Miss Candyfloss dress and go somewhere pretty…I picked this spot in downtown Belleville, which has a really fun mural!

The girls made me a beautiful birthday cake for dessert, too!

And a little more Animal Crossing, including a visit from Chickadee:

I had a very nice day, and as always, I’m sad it went by so quickly!

Sweet Sixteen

Today is Ladybug’s 16th birthday!

We did things a little differently this year since Moose has a band concert tonight. So let’s start with a look at her birthday dinner, which we actually had on her Birthday Eve! She chose two recipes from Destiny: The Official Cookbook…tortilla chicken soup with all the toppings, and “Coldheart,” a green smoothie with kiwis, banana, mango, avocado, and spinach:

For dessert, she turned to The Ultimate Final Fantasy XIV Online Cookbook, where she found a recipe for “Princess Pudding,” which was a type of lava cake:

She waited until this morning to open her presents. It was a very Stitch themed birthday!

Is it even a birthday in our house if there aren’t Legos?

Happy Sweet Sixteen Ladybug!