How We Celebrated...Part II

And now, what you've all been waiting on the edge of your seats for.  The conclusion of How We Celebrated...

Of course our celebration of Hubby's birthday included food.  Isn't that the highlight?

Hubby asked if I wouldn't mind whipping up a batch of cupcakes for him to take to work on his birthday.  Me, bake?  Twist my arm.  He selected my chocolate sour cream recipe with Madagascar Bourbon vanilla buttercream frosting.  I added the cupcake picks (from Hobby Lobby) myself, which were very basic.  I might try making some myself next time.

For his actual birthday cake, Hubby wanted his mom's recipe for "Crazy Cake."  It's basically an uber-moist, egg-less chocolate cake, similar to red velvet but without the food coloring.  The method for making it is a bit bizarre, but it is really, really good.  Unfortunately, we sort of ruined it by using a store-bought sugar-free vanilla frosting.  It really calls for a vanilla cream cheese frosting, so I'll try that instead next time.

At our house, the birthday person gets to choose the food that he or she wants for dinner.  I grew up with this tradition, which for me started by selecting lasagna and later turned to pizza.  And since these days I cook pretty much every night, the tradition has evolved into choosing a birthday restaurant.  Hubby chose a local pizza joint, Crust.

Crust is downtown and housed in an old wagon factory.  They serve a free appetizer known as pizza bites -- bits of fried pizza dough topped with cheese and dipped marinara sauce.  Bubba adores them, but I try not to fill up on the bites because I want to save as much room as I can for the main attraction, the pizza.  Crust also serves pastas and sandwiches, but we have only ever ordered the pizza.  I'm not generally a fan of thin crust pizza, but Crust's simple cheese pizza with extra cheese is just so yummy.  The cheese blend they use is amazing, perfectly salty, and there is lots and lots of it.  No other toppings required.  Hubby made a good choice!

I was so thrilled when the pizza arrived, I forgot to snap a picture.  Guess we'll have to go there again soon so I can get a good one...

How We Celebrated...Part 1

Yes, it's been a few weeks since I blogged.  Although I have had lots to blog about, I wasn't feeling particularly inspired.  Then I had the brilliant idea to feature all the projects I was working on for Hubby's birthday this month, so I had to wait until that came and passed (since we sort of celebrated here and there all week).  And since we finally finished our birthday fun last night, I'm finally ready to write about what went on.  And I'm going to milk it, too, by featuring one item per blog.  Here goes...

1.  Birthday Wreath
Back in January, my friend Jacki blogged about a goal she had for the year - to have a new wreath on her front door each month.  And while I don't think I necessarily want a wreath all the time (after all, variety is the spice of life) I do like how welcoming a decorative hanging on the front door seems.  So I thought I'd try to meet Jacki's challenge.

Since I already had a Valentine door hanging as well as an Easter wreath in my collection, I thought it would be nice to have something to "Welcome Spring" to put up between the two occasions.  I found a cute design on Pinterest, so I followed the directions from the "Capture the Details" blog, and viola!  I was pretty happy with the result:

Following that success, I was ready for another challenge.  The next event:  Hubby's May birthday.  I found another wreath design online that I liked using un-inflated balloons and set out to recreate it.  I have to say, the birthday wreath was quite a bit more work (and quite a bit more costly, too).  The styrafoam wreath is wrapped in ribbon (which you can't even see, even though the ribbon was about $5) and there are almost 250 balloons on it, not to mention the "Happy Birthday" sticker and hat.  The little things added up quickly (although I suppose I could have made those items myself if I was super creative).   But since this wreath will be used three times each year, it's multipurpose (at least that's how I'm justifying it).  I really like how it looks:

Isn't it colorful?  I do think I'll add a few curly ribbons to it before we pull it out again for Bubba's birthday in July, and maybe stick a little gift ornament on it as well.

I was considering a patriotic wreath for the early summer to commemorate Memorial Day and Independence Day, but I think I might be a little burned out on crafts -- wreaths in particular -- for now.  So I found this at Kohl's for 60% off.

I think it will do...at least for now.