Happy Sanksgeeving!

Best... Birthday... EVER! When else do you get a huge vegetarian feast, a keg of great beer, a ton of friends, and a Siamese cat head cake for your birthday?? On Thanksgiving of course!! It was a great party, and I was very thankful for it. We had 13 people over for dinner potluck style, and everyone came through with the gourmet goodies. I aspire to one day have a table that looks like it came from the pages of Gourmet magazine, with pretty centerpieces and salt cellars at each place setting, but this works for us too. We're casual with our dinner parties and it definitely cuts down on the stress level. The keg also helped with cutting down the stress level! On to pictures!

Jeff is into craft projects and one of his two for the day were these Indian feather caps he made for everyone. He worked on the feathers all day long and then Heidi and Mandy helped with the newspaper caps to put them in. What's a party without party hats?

I had mine at a jaunty angle.
Check out that spread! Our wedding gifts definitely came in handy for this party. Jan and Dave dominated the grown-up version of mac n' mad cheddar that I made, Zach and Erika's pomegranate and apple relish and veggie stuffing were huge hits with everyone, and Mandy's green bean casserole was a highlight. Seth's tofurkey not as much. But we had to do it. I made some leek and broccoli empanadas to celebrate my Latina heritage. Just kidding. But really, they were tasty. I'm going to have to make those again.

Ready to be jealous? This was one of my birthday gifts from Jeff- a cake made by the lovely and talented Jana of Jana's Fun Cakes. It was above and beyond my expectations. I screamed when they brought it out. I thought they would carve it out of a sheet cake- 2D style, but they really went all out. It was a vanilla sponge cake with a white chocolate ganache and raspberry filling. Deelish. It took me a couple hours to work up the courage to carve it. :(

Spitting image!

The ears and muzzle were made out of frosted rice krispie treats for stability and were devoured as soon as they were ripped off.
I know my mom is going to object to the pool of raspberry sauce beneath the severed cat head. I object as well and it was not my choice. Bad Jana!
Kitty with no ears.
They made me take this picture.
Kitty with no ears or muzzle. :(
This was Jeff's 2nd craft project, to try to drum up donations for our keg of fancy beer. You stick money in the cat's bum. That's Jeff...

Heidi and Kurt brought Mandy and Seth's new puppy from Delaware all the way to California for them! It's the sweetest and cutest 5 month old fawn French Bulldog. Jan was quite taken with him and Crum was quite taken with Jan.

He got tuckered out easily. Good thing Mandy brought his bed.
Me jumping for joy in my new birthday outfit (thanks Mom and Dad and Grammie!!).