Cake, cake, cake

Where to start!?  I feel like I can’t possibly catch up because our weekend was so full, but I will try.  It’s worth it.

Family is the best.  Ok so let me start off with Saturday.

That’s the face of a girl with a secret.

I had given them sips of my ginger tea earlier in the day and they were begging nonstop for more ever since.  So I made them a cranberry tea to share.  I could tell they didn’t really like it, but because they had asked for it for so long, they pretended to want it.  P actually finished his, but V gave up after faking it for a few sips.

Anyway, it was a double header birthday party day, and while I may come across as a total scrooge for admitting this, I’m still going to say it.  I don’t like kid birthday parties.  I am perfectly good at pretending though.

I fueled up with this pumpkin bread and cashew butter after a bike ride.

And then we all went out for party number one.  Miraculously we made it out without any dessert.  The kids were not pleased about it at first, but I reminded them that we had another party that day (Valley’s!!!) and too much cake would give them a tummy ache.

After feeding them lunch, I finished off the prep I needed to do for my own daughter’s party.

I had made her requested chocolate cupcakes the night before, so all I had to do was frost them.

With PINK frosting, of course. Both of my kids and their love of pink…

I had this salad for lunch.

And then got some photos of my three year old in the monthly chair picture.  The chair is on it’s last legs, as you can see, and I have basically been waiting until she turned three to get rid of it because that’s when I stopped doing his monthly pictures as well.

Her party was windy, but kids never seem to care about weather.

The most important part was that she felt special. And while the turnout wasn’t amazing (it’s Spring Break and lots of people were out of town), her closest buddies were all present to sing to her.

And when I say “her closest buddies” I mean his closest buddies, which she thinks are her besties too.  She’s pretty much one of the big kids now though, and THAT means more to her than any other gift she could get.

The cupcakes were a hit and then we came home toooooo….pizza!!!

I was trying to get creative and finish off things in the fridge so we all had totally different things for dinner.  Super random, but delicious nonetheless. I used up the rest of the cheese and this lonely TJs pizza crust (from a two pack?) that was in my freezer, which the kids split.

And then I made a salad with the last bits of greens in the house, the rest of my home-made balsamic, candied walnuts, and steak.

Oh and some more of the goat gouda too.  It’s soooo creamy!

There was still extra steak though, because I didn’t want it all, so I gave some to the kids too.  They finished off the pizza AND the steak AND still wanted more food!!!!  What the what!?!?  I gave them baby carrots until they were full.

Kyle had the leftover corned beef and cabbage with a pita.

Phew!  What a day!  Cupcakes galore.

Sunday was even more fun, if that’s possible.

We went to my parents’ house and after my mom got a bit of food prep out of the way, she and I went for a pedicure together.  Long long loooong overdue.  The best part was that I got to catch up with her and hear all about her trip (she’s been in Ecuador for a month re-learning Spanish) without the kids interrupting us every second.

Kyle took them to my old Elementary School to play and then I fed them lunch when I got home.

V didn’t really nap, but I was kinda preparing myself for that.  In her defense, there was WAY TOO much other fun stuff going on.  I wouldn’t want to miss out either!  She was quiet on the monitor for an hour or so, so maybe she did get some rest, but I’m leaning towards not (especially now that I know how the 6-7 pm hour went for her…).

There were two different kinds of goat cheese for the crackers we had as apps, but this was new to me, so I took a picture.  My mom found it at Costco, so of course, it is massive and probably more than I would ever need, but I’m still going to try to find it.

It’s spreadable, like soft cream cheese, but it’s chevre!  The main reason I think it’s so awesome is because the way most goat cheese is packaged is SOOO ANNOYING.  You end up losing 1/5 of the cheese in the wrapper corners and it’s just not a good design at all.  i feel like this tub will be a big improvement.

I had a bunch of crackers with this cheese and the goat brie, as well as carrots with baba ganoush from Diablo Foods.  Hashtag balanced.

My family!

After a sufficient amount of snacking went down, the birthday peeps opened presents.

I fear every photo of V from this day forward will showcase high heels and all the jewelry.  :-/

Recognize this salmon?  Probably not because it’s hard to recognize a salmon dish by sight, but it’s the same Vietnamese Caramel salmon I made a few days ago.  My mom doesn’t have an instant pot, but I made the glaze and just marinated it in that and then dumped the extra on the pan.  After it was mostly done in the oven I brushed the extra sauce all over the fish again and then let it broil for a few minutes.  It got pretty thick and caramel-like despite not being reduced down in a pan.

We also had this strawberry harvest vegetable salad which is by Eat Smart, the same brand who makes my faaave broccoli slaw poppyseed salad.  It’s organic though!!!  That’s the only reason I stopped buying the brocc slaw kit.  Well, that and I kinda OD-ed on it.  You know how my food ruts go…I eat the same salad for 365 days straight and then move on to the next thing for another 365 days.  Right now, that salad is my beloved vegan Winter salad.  But now it’s Spring, so what am I gonna do???  Ha.  I’ll keep eating roasted butternut squash until the stores stop carrying it.

The strawberry salad kit has kale, beet greens, broccoli stalks, carrots, red cabbage, quinoa and almonds with a strawberry vinaigrette (and feta which my mom left off).   It was great!  Normally I’d never be drawn to a sweet vinaigrette like that but it was pretty balanced out with all the greens.  I’d definitely buy it to have again.

Next up was this lentil salad, which I have now shown on my blog at least 5 times.  it’s the one from America’s Test Kitchen vegetarian cookbook with hazelnuts, goat cheese, and parsley.  Oh man oh man is it gooood.

It’s like my mom was making my all time favorites!!  Who’s birthday is this???  Felt like mine with all these fantastic dishes.

LOOK AT THIS FISH!!!  NOMNOMNOM.

We had roasted Brussels sprouts, asparagus, and potatoes too.  And my mom legit thought we weren’t going to have enough food!?  She cray.

Even though we basically just ate lunch, we all sat down to lunch #2 (linner?) at 3 pm as if we were running on empty.  I couldn’t help myself with all the delish food.  There was just so much yum.

But it didn’t even stop there…oh no no no.  We had desserts (plural) next.  Starting with apple cobbler and ending with gluten free chocolate cake with chocolate chunks inside and coconut chocolate frosting on top.

Happy birthday tooooo youuu…

And you.

These kids have never eaten anything faster.  Who needs a fork?

I couldn’t even believe it when my parents busted out two flavors of organic almond milk ice cream. Is this real life?  So spoiled.

Don’t mind me over here working on my bikini body with a plate of chocolate cake and ice cream.

What a fun fun day.  Thank you mom and dad!  We hadn’t all gotten together since Christmas (!!!) so I’m glad everyone is back.

Pretty soon there will be a little hiatus from HHH.  I may pop in but I’m not sure yet, but I just wanted to give you a heads up.