Birthday Night

On Tuesday night, I discovered all of my cookbooks missing. I called up to the one girl I felt was most likely to have some knowledge of the situation, Firstborn. "Giggle giggle...Mama, I WANTED to make you breakfast for your birthday. PLEASE let me." (And then, I must admit, I had visions of her in the first grade, having studied about Santa Lucia, coming in at 5AM with toast in her hands and a crown on her head, gentling nudging me awake. Oh, I was gracious. I squinted, then oohhed and ahhhed, then sat up and crunched my way through the toast. Then after she left, I suggested to CC we take that unit out of the first grade curriculum!)

Though I felt it was so sweet to want to make us breakfast on our birthday, I told Firstborn there was just no way we'd be out the door by 8AM on a school day if we tried it. So then she asked if she could make my cake. That we could do! I told her I'd pick a recipe, then I came downstairs and when I put up the cookbooks, one lone recipe fell out. (I had recently organized all my loose ones so I was surprised to see it not put in the binder.)

Guess what? Red Velvet Cupcakes with cream cheese icing. I ran back up the steps and said, "I know what I want. This." She beamed. Call me crazy, but I felt like God just did that. Mama always made or bought me a red velvet cake for my birthday and CC would rather eat cream cheese icing than anything in the world.

As soon as she got home from school, she got started. It wasn't easy. She had to separate eggs, beat the whites to a stiff peak, etc.

But they were fabulous! She put broken candy canes on top. I couldn't have gotten a better dessert in any fine bakery.

We had a nice family dinner and enjoyed celebrating. Miss Middler made me a concotion of various hotel lotions and shampoos as my gift. Twinkle Toes gave me a beautiful ceramic dish for jewelry. Sweet Cheeks drew me a picture, not quite finished, and suggested I add some more people to it. CC got me a ...oh, that's tomorrow's post.

And this little guy thought it was totally about him. He wanted to blow our candles out. He wanted to unwrap our gifts. And everytime I pulled the camera out, he did this...

I love family!