See the Happy Birthday Girls

Well, it was a heck of a party. It was exactly our kind of party, too--tons of good stuff to eat, all our favorite parent and non-parent friends, all the girls' favorite kid-friends, and a freakin' jump house! Let me tell you, that jump house is worth its weight in gold. It kept the kids entertained for the few hours today that Matt and I needed to set everything up before the party, it kept all the kids and some of the adults entertained during the entire party (no party games for me!), our family has jumped in it off and on for the whole rest of the afternoon and evening, and best of all--the party rental place is closed tomorrow, so the dude told Matt that we don't have to return the jump house until Monday morning. You heard me--Monday morning! I went a little crazy and invited pretty much everybody back tomorrow to jump some more, so it will be something like a party redeux.

This party is the first year that we did well, I think, with the food and drink. We stuck with the stuff that we, personally, love, Boca brauts, pineapple, blue tortilla chips, boxed organic salad greens--stuff like that, stuff that we can therefore cook up properly and serve nicely. The other day at our big-box Kroger's, Matt was walking by their tiny little shelf, between the refrigerated Sunny D's and the Lay's chips, of micro-brewery beers, and lo!, there was Shiner Bach, our local beer when he and I were just pups dating at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. He bought a six-pack for old time's sake, and yesterday, both kids in tow, the shopping cart full of Amy's burgers and grapes, I went back and bought the whole rest of the selection, all seven six-packs. Hallelujah, and awesome beer for our buddies.

I also bought, instead of cake mixes (which I always mess up, for reasons I do not understand), a big four-pack of brownie mix at Sam's, and a biiiiiig cake pan and real live decorating tips at Hobby Lobby. I am utterly surprised at this, but all that added up to: It may not look like much, but seriously, this is probably the fourth time I have ever baked something and it both looked and tasted really good. The whole party, people were complimenting me on the cake and the decoration, and I'm all, "Oh, thank you! I'm pretty proud of it, too. It was my first time cake decorating, can you tell?" It seriously did not for one second occur to me, until after the party, that Matt was the one who actually drew in the dinosaur with the black frosting; I only colored it in. Oops.

I am traditionally really lousy at taking photos during parties--I'm always too busy partying and eating, but I did manage this year to get a photo of my girls with their birthday cake:

And the wish...
Right now, Matt is ushering two exhausted girls through a quick bath before bed. I'm about to head over to a date with Dick Blick to buy some class-pack art supplies for the girls, now that we have some basement storage room, and then tonight, after the girls are asleep, I have a date with Matt back in the jump house.

What are you doing tonight?