Pink Frosting

When Jim asked what kind of birthday cake I wanted this year, the answer was easy: Chocolate with pink frosting! And sprinkles! And so, that is what he made:
It was cute and yummy and I had a piece for breakfast this morning too. One word of caution: when blowing out candles, beware flying sprinkles! ha ha!

So, yesterday was my birthday. Disregard which birthday a certain supposed friend claimed it to be in the comments of the last post. It's a grievous lie. What I will say about my age is that the second digit of it is twice the first digit. So, I'm either a) 24, b) 36, or c) 48. You decide. Also, I'm curious: does anybody in the world feel like their age? Does anybody in the world feel like a "grownup"? Does that happen? I've become fairly convinced that 99.9% of all grownups are faking it. Would you agree? Or do you think it is a larger percentage that really are solid grownups in mind, body, and spirit? In any case, not me. I am a kid, as evidenced by my birthday cake!

A good thing, by the way, about being a Christmas baby is that chances are good your family will all be around for your birthday! My sister is here from California, and my brother would have been here from Seattle but he missed his train. My parents live here, and my mom made two of my grandmother's favorite recipes: spaghetti with crab, and polenta with red pepper sauce -- yum!) Our dear friends Chary (pronounced Carrie) and her boyfriend Aaron and her brother Ben and his girlfriend Rachel all came over too, for dinner and pink cake and vino and limoncello. Alexandra already left town for the holidays, but she was here in spirit and in snow globe. In this picture of Ben and Rachel, you can see her in snowglobe by Ben's shoulder:
Every year, Alexandra tries to come up with some new way of turning photographs of herself into gifts for Jim and for her brother David. This year: snowglobes. Fantastic and scary!

{Speaking of scary, I Am Legend is absolutely fantastic!!!! All the stuff I complained about in Golden Compass as far as storytelling opportunities lost and not making you care, this is the opposite. It's a spare, quiet, pared-down kind of horror thriller movie that makes you lean forward in your seat, wanting to peer around corners, wanting to know more, and then, finally, it gives it to you. The exposition is worked in seamlessly so you never feel the storyteller at work. You care A LOT about the character and his beautiful, wonderful dog, the situation is super freaky but the director backs off from exploiting it in a noisy obnoxious way and makes it way freakier. Will Smith is AMAZING. I would love to see him nominated for an Oscar for this. Really, if you like scary movies at all, SEE IT. It's not super greusome, but it IS scary. I think we're going to see Juno today. More on that later.}

More birthday pics:
Here's the savage Leroy in his typical party pose:








Oh, and look, gift tags:
I found some funky old playing cards at a collage store and I turned them into gift tags. I always have a blast making gift tags; these were super easy -- there are also a few funky little ladies in there.

Oh yeah, and yesterday morning, Jim brought me 8 or 9 bouquets of flowers. Sweet Jim!
Happy holidays, everyone!