Best Laid Plans

We celebrated Ruby's birthday last evening. And you might as well know, I'm not one of those good Party Mommies who send out invitations and buy themed goodie bags and invite little friends and order a cool cake.

I invite Cory's family, relying mostly on word-of-mouth. Typically, this method results in someone finding out at the last possible moment, and then I mentally flog myself and resolve to do better next time. This year, the nearly-uninvited guest was Grandma Polly. We called her Saturday evening and she was kind enough to act like it was all no problem. One of these days, we just might get it together...

For every birthday, I make a batch of cupcakes, from a mix. Just being honest. I must say, I've become quite the expert Betty Crocker boxed-cupcake baker. My tips: add slightly more oil than what is called for and underbake by roughly 5 minutes.

This year, I went a little wild and bought a Martha Stewart tissue paper pom-pom kit for 50% off, back in February. So, it seemed, we were going to actually have some decorations this year!

Cory helped me haul my little table out under the cherry tree and then we stayed up until 1 a.m. assembling 5 pom poms. So beautiful. And more time-consuming than I had imagined...

I gathered some flowers and plunked them in various vases with big plans to set them on the table, beneath the pom poms.


Sunday afternoon, despite relentless winds, we traipsed out and hung the poms from the branches. They proved hardier than they look and tolerated the wind just fine.

Not long after everyone arrived, disaster struck, in the form of rain. Jamie, Kevin and I hightailed it out to rescue the fragile, wilting lovelies.

As I ran, I took two pictures. Both were accidentally taken in Macro.

The wind was really whipping them around, and they were starting to soggify.

Wouldn't this have been the ideal spot for a cupcake or two? Sigh....

Instead, we piled everything onto the kitchen counter.

All of the flowers...

And the food....

And the Betty Crocker cupcakes.

And then we had ourselves a party.

**First two photos were taken by Cory with his fancy-britches camera.