Happy Birthday Stephen!

Stephen turned 30 on Memorial Day! Being such a milestone birthday we decided to throw a party, being on Memorial Day it ended up being a HUGE party (somewhere in the ballpark of 45 people). Stephen wanted to have a Chinese BBQ, which essentially is cooking meat over the fire. We added sticky rice and romaine lettuce to make lettuce wraps, and then there was tons of salad and fruit to also eat.

I wanted to instill a bit of patriotic spirit into the party so I made a balloon banner. It felt very festive.

The most work went into the cake. I asked Stephen what kind of cake he wanted and he said “a train cake” since we had recently found pictures of his train cakes from when he was a kid. So after many many hours of labor (2 cakes: 1 box, 1 chocolate cake from scratch) I came up with this. 1 engine, 13 cars (3 coal, 1 oil, 3 log, 2 cargo, 1 caboose, 2 “abandoned” in the back), and many cupcake bushes. It ended up being 4ft long, and was absolutely delicious.

We had a great time cooking, eating and socializing with both friends and family. I didn’t have to watch Samantha or Clara at all with all the cousins around (she was just passed along). The weather ended up being beautiful and perfect! We had been threatened with storms all day and were worried that we’d have to have everyone inside. But the rain didn’t start until well after everyone left and as a bonus, there weren’t any bugs!
Happy Birthday Stephen! You’re 30 now, but you’ll never grow up! And I love you for it.