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!!!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

For FHE last night, we got out paper, stickers, stamps, glue, glitter and the vintage typewriter that I bought on ebay last month and made valentines.

It was fun, but now I know if we are going to do family projects like this, I need half a dozen more typewriters.

I was glad Rachel got a turn, because she made this lovely card that made me smile -

Yes, it is upside down and no matter what I do, that's how it loads, so here is what she wrote (so that you don't have to stand on your head on your desk to read it) -

Once upon a time
There was a princess named Amy S.....
She was beautiful and very kind (Rachel is being too nice!)
And got married to her Prince Charming (that's the truth)
And lived Happily Ever After

Summer was also feeling creative and made each of us bookmarks and sent them to us for Valentine's Day. Aren't they darling?

Eek! I won!!!!

Last week, like I do almost every week, I entered the Friday giveaway on one of my favorite blogs: Forgotten Bookmarks.

This was my comment -

No way! Thanks for the best giveaway ever. I am going to short out my keyboard with drool :)

Congratulations on the 1000th post on your wonderful blog!

Here is the original contest with all the lovely, amazing, drool-worthy books and here is the announcement of the winner. Me!

p.s. Maybe you also remember my submission to Forgotten Bookmarks from last November.