Grandma's BD

Happy Birthday Grandma; she is 83 years young :) 

Lately we've been getting together at mom and daddy's house for family events - well, that part isn't exactly new - the difference is, now mom sets the table and lets us bring everything else. It's been working great. No prep and serving stress for them plus they don't have to travel to the fun. It works well for all of us because their floor plan is perfect for a gathering and they are centrally located - which is important now that we are spread out for about 30 miles from Kent to Bothell.

For this celebration we decided to have a build-your-own-pizza party. There was a bit of chaos associated with the assembly of pizza's; but it was fun chaos. There was also a learning curve for using Trader Joe's fresh pizza dough. We need to try this again only use a hotter oven and less dough per pizza; tops were getting done before the middle of the dough could finish cooking. But everything was still delicious.

We created some virtual masterpieces. I couldn't help but notice how personalities appeared in some of these masterpieces :)

Glenna and Anna made the BD cake. It was the cake that mom always brought to Fragaria for Aunt Dorothy on her birthday that was Martin's first wife Betty's recipe. Did you follow that :) It was another learning curve moment; apparently you need to put the topping on the hot cake as it comes out of the oven...and not before you bake the cake...everyone gobbled it up anyway :)

When I talked with Grandma the next day she was telling me about her favorite parts of the evening; which of course included food, family and flowers :) She ended by saying it was the best family celebration we have had in a long time. So glad we could make her birthday special!



*photo disclaimer: photos are fuzzy and focus challenged; I apologize for that :/ my camera does not handle indoor snapshots worth a darn but I wanted to include pictures in this post.