A Very Schiessl Birthday

Note: This entry is not very funny.  Sorry.  But it is lovely and familial.

Today, F'SF celebrated a birthday.

Our wonderful Grammy, the birthday girl, turned twenty-seven.

Yes, I said twenty-seven.  The candles say 2 and 7 and together they make 27, so it's official.

Last night, we stealthily decorated the house after Grandpa got Grammy to go to bed.  Thanks to my aunt, uncle, and cousin, we had every birthday decoration you could want.  Streamers and cakes and hats and even...

 Balloons!!

 

I decorated this mantle all on my own, and yes, I was pretty much responsible for the fact that we used eight rolls of streamer ribbon.

We even got the tall guy, Jonathan, to hang our big banner over the sliding glass door.

Oh, what?  You like our view, you say?  Why, thank you, we quite enjoy it as well.

Of course, birthdays require a cake.  So naturally, I volunteered to make one!

While I was taking pictures of my cake, I also found the "digital macro" setting on my camera.  These are some blueberries.  We've been eating a lot of blueberries.

 I was very proud of my nom-nom cake with a whole package of candles.

I tried to use the technique from Hello, Cupcake to make a piping around the edge of the cake.  In this picture (digital macro setting, again) it looks nice.  I decided not to post the picture that shows that it, in fact, kind of stunk.

The cake was a vanilla butter cake with a dark chocolate cream cheese buttercream, decorated with a vanilla buttercream.  I'm not sure how I feel about the cake recipe, but I know it was slightly overcooked.  As for the frosting, I could eat both of them with a spoon, but I would add a little more cream cheese to the chocolate frosting.

Then, it was time for family pictures.  We posed with our cake, first.

And then we had to get all of the grandkids in with Grammy.  It's weird that there's only three of us, right?  We don't like sharing the spotlight.

Jonathan wasn't cooperating, so I had to get him in line.  Sometimes, you just have to show the younguns who's boss.

The ladies of the house also posed with the cake, and I'm sure all of them will kill me for posting post-beach pictures on here.  I spared the men from having their picture all over the Internet because two out of three of them are ragingly sunburnt.

The verdict on the cake?  Delicious.  We also got personalized buckets, courtesy of Aunt Ralene, Uncle Kenny, and Nick.  They're so sneaky... they even had fortunes.

Mine said: A white Christmas is coming your way.  I.  Effing.  Love.  Christmas.

Grammy certainly got a lot of nice things for her birthday this year.  But her best present...

...was this!


 Happy Birthday, Grammy!

Love and cake batter,
Courtney