Two celebrations involving our wonderful parents happen in May: Our Dad's birthday on the 4th, and of course, Mother's Day! Here are some pictures from each of those events this year...
It can be hard to come up with a ''theme'' for our Dad's birthday table year after year. More and more often we come up with ideas the day of. Such was this birthday: we hastily drew inspiration from our Dad's character at a recent party (Captain Mo Marrow was the name) and threw together a fun ''Mo Marrow'' nautical table. :)
A favourite meal of our Dad's is chicken a la king, so of course we had to make it:
A birthday dessert....
As for Mother's Day...it being on a Sunday and all we don't usually do more than a nice table. But I still wanted to do something more focused on our amazing Mum so a random Tuesday following Mother's Day when our mother was out of the house I set and prepared a woodland-ish luncheon. The results were fascinatingly ''Redwall-ish''- not that our Mum is a Redwall fan but we are and who can resist that lovely style? you'll know what I mean when you see the cake.
The cake...delightfully healthy and delicious all at once! It's created with barley/wheat/etc. flour and nuts and other such delights. I just went delicately wild when assembling the dear cake. ;)
A rice flour cake for a family member on a gluten free /dairy free diet! It worked out quiet well, and in between the layers I spread jam and rice pudding!
Healthy dark chocolate covered healthy coconut patties! :)
The delightfully woodland (healthy) cake!
I'm so thankful that we can do little celebrations like these with our family!
Keep following this blog, because next up are pictures from a lovely bridal shower for a friend...and after that, wedding pictures from the wedding itself! :) See you then!
After doing a successful little dolls' Valentine's party, I promised Katia (8) that the next event would be a dolls' St. Patrick's breakfast...So on March 13th I got up (I make it sound like an unusual feat, don't I) and unpacked my little Irish things (from my 10th birthday :))
(insert photo of honorable 10th birthday):
I suppose I look about 3 years older now. ;p
When Katia saw what I was doing, she insisted upon helping.
My childhood dolls (and bear) were excited to attend a party again. :)
Of course they were all decked out in green....
Tien Pao and Sammy tried very hard to not crash the party...but considering their wardrobe choices, I'm not sure what to think. Supposedly they were short on green vestments.
Now..to make you hungry and to inspire you to return to my blog for the recipes when I share them...
Minty coconut patties... made with stevia. As in... no sugar! :)
Little scones
Healthy orange ''jello'' :) Recipe to come...
I juiced carrots, apples, etc. and mixed with gelatin and honey.
Unhealthy shortbread cookies :)
Healthy. Don't hurt their feelings. They tried their best and actually tasted good.
Healthy trifle...my favorite :)
Recipe to come some time
It was a pleasant little morning...I'm so proud of myself for not forcing my dear family to consume some overly green concoction such as....
(assurance: this photo was found online. I may love green, but I don't go that far)
This is as far as I've ever gone.... ;)
(photo from 2011)
Of courseth, around St. Patrick's day we watched Riverdance! :)
...we did a massive theme for all the October birthdays, and Laura-Lise's (Sept. 19th)!
It was great fun to plan and prepare for. I had the fun task of making the delicious foods, as well as decorating a bit. We have two wonderful African-style cookbooks, and we've done two other African parties in the past so planning this menu was a breeze!
Decorating was also incredibly easy, partially because my room was already decorated in an African style. so we just borrowed props from it! (And these props came from dozens of past birthdays themselves from Colonial to Filipino...it's amazing what you can do with items!)
Pictures are usually important for our birthdays :)
...as well as draped fabric and such
Our useful trunks make yet another appearance! This was the best part of the theme.
I found a lot of new favourite musical pieces in the African genre in preparation for this birthday! :) We got a whole CD of traditional songs, but these were our favorites to fit the mood...
Love this one! It's so fun to dance to!
So we sat at our table and listened to African music while we dined upon...
Breakfast crepes stuffed with fruit and cream
and nutty baked bananas which were delicious despite the photo
and the lemongrass peanuts!
trail mix as favours.
You've never seen these Dr. Seuss-style fruits, have you? Our Mum discovered them while at our International market. I disremember the title of this honorable fruit. But no matter; they weren't incredibly well-received by the general consumers.
The rest of the day was spent outside in the amazing fall weather! We visited a favourite spot, Spanish Lake and picked more persimmons
God created such amazing, amazing colours! I am so grateful!
Following that, we headed over to Columbia Bottoms to spend some time on the shore.
Lovely sister and October birthday girl Nikola
Surprisingly, there weren't a whole lot of pleasant photos taken of people that day.
I have plenty of pictures, but they excell in randomness and candidness band I am wise enough to surmise that my siblings would protest if I were to put them up on this here blog. Don't worry: I fired the photographer already.
This is NOT funny.
Yes it is.
I can't decide.
Anyway, all I was doing was demonstrating to my dear sisters (and faithful listeners)
how African women have a very healthy posture as they lean over stirring their stew, washing clothes, etc. which we Americans need to emulate.
In case anyone was wondering, Jessie is a good and obedient student.
I like her.
Nikola on the other hand...
just kidding. :)
Well...home we went at dusk and prepared a delicious supper of...
Smashed (yes, on purpose!) potatoes topped with corn, peas and chile-garlic oil
flat bread with a spice blend called dukka which was an instant favourite.
We also had meat patties thingys which weren't very photogenic.
And for dessert....
The most amazing healthy cake ever! It's from the cookbook Afro-Vegan as well, and includes an avacado or two, coconut milk ganache, etc. It was incredible! It also had some spicy notes in its rich chocolate-ness from cayenne and cinnamon...mmmm!!!
Nikola got the healthy one
(btw this theme was for L-L, S, N and J but the latter got the cakes since they hadn't had a real cake yet. Make sense?)
I made a super-healthy (flourless) one for Jessie, Katia and I! hehe; nobody notices that we get more cake to ourselves than the others!
There was also homemade icecream.
Need I say anything more?
Just to make you jealous
We concluded this fun African birthday with an appropriate movie which was new to us: Duma! We quite enjoyed it. Esp. the bushbaby creature.
It can be hard to come up with a ''theme'' for our Dad's birthday table year after year. More and more often we come up with ideas the day of. Such was this birthday: we hastily drew inspiration from our Dad's character at a recent party (Captain Mo Marrow was the name) and threw together a fun ''Mo Marrow'' nautical table. :) 
