Saturday, May 4, was Lincoln's big Five Year Old Birthday Party, and Spiderman was everywhere at our house. Joining us from out of town were the Cincinnati Mullens, the Great Grandparents Mullen, Aunt Kas, Grandma Laura, Grandpa Dave, Auntie Haley, Aunt Kristine, Meredith... and coming back for her summer stay was Great Grandma Gates.
As part of the preparations for the party, I went back to photos of Lincoln's previous birthday parties. He's changed so much from one year to the next! He's also becoming quite the son to be proud of, with good manners (for the most part), good social skills at events such as this, and just a sweet personality.
It's times like this, the
birthday parties where Jenn completely
goes above and
beyond to fill the kids' minds with unforgetable, special
memories, that I am espescially reminded how special and amazing my wife is.
The decorations were phenomenal, and the cake, of course, was the centerpiece. Here's how it came together.
The menu was a special treat, too, with a couple of variations of macaroni and cheese, Southern-style and Goat Cheese & Herb. Yum. Thankfully Jenn doubled the recipes and put some in the freezer for later. Veggies with a homemade Red Pepper Hummus and Greek Yorgurt & Herb dips along with a Layered Crab dip kept the natives from becoming too restless prior to the main course. Homemade Garlic Butter Bread Sticks made Olive Garden look cheap. A Mixed Fruit Salad & Greens w/ Poppy Seed Dressing would have qualified for dessert had we not followed it up with Pretzel Webs (pretzel sticks held together with white chocolate in the shape of a spider web with a dried cherry "spider" in the middle) and Marshmallow Raspberry treats.
And the cake. Oh, the cake. Three layers: Black Forest, authentic Black Forest with cherries and German cherry brandy, made the foundation; Blueberry Muffin cake made the middle, and Pineapple Coconut topped it off. The icing really was the icing on the cake, for it wasn't overpoweringly sweet, but more the mildly sweet that keeps one coming back for more. Jenn said it was much tougher to decorate with, but the taste more than made up for it.
A special surprise that Uncle Jim was able to provide for Lincoln was a ride in his convertible. Lincoln has been telling Jenn for a while that "we should get a convertible." So they took a buzz around the neighborhood.
It's amazing to think of what all has taken place since Lincoln's fourth birthday. To think that at his party last year we were anticipating traveling to China in what
would prove to be just two weeks. More on this as our first Gotcha! Day approaches...
2 comments:
Please adopt me!
Wow...
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