Birthdays Plus

Stan had a birthday and everyone gave him tools, except Heather, who bought him a couple of nifty pigeon books, and my parents, who gave him leather gloves, socks and...an awl. Stan likes tools :)

We all had fun celebrating his birthday with him and eating yogurt cheesecake.

Here's the recipe -

Strain 4 cups yogurt through a dishcloth for a while. It will lose quite a bit of liquid.

While you wait, make a crust of 1 and ¼ cups crushed cereal or graham crackers , ¼ cup butter and ¼ cup sugar. Press into a cake pan and bake at 350 until browned around edges.

Let oven cool to 275 while crust cools and you mix together the following –

strained yogurt (discard liquid)

4 egg yolks

½ cup sugar

¼ cup cream

¼ teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla

Bake at 275 until it isn’t jiggly in the middle anymore. Cool to room temp, chill and serve with fruit topping.

Heather took this picture of a phoebe in the back yard.

Next, it was my turn for a birthday. I took advantage of it and slept in :) When I woke up, I found flowers and muffins for breakfast from Stan.

Michael helped me eat them :)

My friend Tammy, who I was neighbors with as a newlywed also has a birthday in February. It is fun to get together with her and celebrate. I am wearing the scarf Rachel gave me.

Gwen got a school-district-wide silver medal for her science fair project - What is the Best Activity to Do Before Homework? (best was exercise, worst was watching an action movie)

The last birthday of the month belongs to our last child, who turned five. I made a cake and frosting, Rachel assembled them and Naomi decorated her cake. And, yes, that is a tea light we added to the birthday candles to make five.

We were on our way to buy ice cream when we passed the cheese sticks, which Mo decided she wanted with her cake instead of ice cream, so we had birthday cake and cheese sticks. How cheesy!

Happy 5th Birthday Naomi!!!!!