He's caught up with me!

I've been 35 for almost 6 months now.
This past Tuesday, Mark caught up (again)!

Here's how we celebrated:

(Imagine picture of breakfast in bed here)

Mark was greeted with a bowl of granola
and freshly-picked raspberries from the farm

While he worked that morning,
I got busy on one of my surprises for him--
I made, from scratch, a homemade
German Chocolate Cake.
It was, in a word, phenomenal.


Now, you should know . . .
I'm not much of a baker (I prefer cooking).
But I try.
And boy did I succeed on this.
That's right, unabashed, self-congratulatory praise.
I *am* proud!

I bought a sifter for this.
I used cake flour.
I visited the farm and got farm fresh eggs (the difference between farm eggs and store bought eggs is about a year's worth of nights and days, there is just no comparison--farm eggs make EVERYTHING better, whether baked in or eaten by themselves--they are truly the best eggs).

I bought a 3rd cake pan since this is the first-ever 3-layer cake we've ever made.
I should add, too, that we don't even like cake that much (except this one--Mark loves German Chocolate Cake). Anyone who knows us or reads our blog knows that we do creative birthday cakes for the kids' parties but in general our "cakes" are usually donuts or cookies or pie or a bowl of M&Ms or a blob of chocolate chip cookie dough.

Back to this glorious cake . . .
I toasted the coconut and pecans.
I simmered and stirred.
I sneaked around the night before, barring Mark from the kitchen
and making (and hiding) the frosting.

I buttered the three cake pans.
I floured them.
I melted several ounces of German Chocolate.
I used a lot of butter in this recipe.
And a lot of eggs.
You don't even want to know the fat grams involved.
But we're smart about it--one week later and we're still eating little bits at a time,
savoring every bite of this divine dessert.

Ahem, I was saying.
I baked 3 cake pans of cake.
I cooled them on cooling racks.
I even went up to the 3rd floor to a pile of stuff we thought we'd sell and I must admit that I was wrong when I thought we wouldn't use that Princess House cake dish.
We used it! I brought it down and washed it.
I placed each cake layer followed by the delicious frosting.

I know some might think, "Yeah, you made a cake. Just say that."
But oh no no no. I didn't just "make a cake."
I made a German Chocolate Cake.
From Scratch.
Big difference.

Here is the result:
German Chocolate Cake.
From Scratch.

D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!


We did other things to celebrate, too.
Like a lovely, light summer lunch outside on our patio:

Cucumber Sandwiches with Dill
Fruit Salsa with homemade Cinnamon Chips

Also delicious.

Then we went bowling:



Then back home to open presents:

Check out the toothless grins

The kids got him much-needed new T-shirts.
See, Mark works his tail end off around here
with both work and home/yard projects,
so his T-shirts have slowly gotten pretty much destroyed.

Now, he's got new ones.
But one of "his" T-shirts is really for me:

See, this comes from a Friends scene (of course)
which you can view here--go ahead, it's funny:



He also got some that fit him well--
"That's What She Said"
"Save Ferris"
"Mathlete"
"Shrute Farms Beets"
"They tell me I have ADD. They just don't underst . . . hey look, a chicken!"

And I got him a Wii Fit:

I'm hoping we get using both this and the wonderful gift that Mark got me for my birthday (a Zune). It's pathetic that I haven't used it yet--I'm so intimidated and overwhelmed by new technology. It's ridiculous.

Then we went out for Mexican Food.
And then we came back for DELICIOUS cake.

Yep, totally posted this just to show the cake again.
I'm egocentric that way.