Tagged: Birthday

8 May, 2012

Happy Birthday Mel!

Playing dress-up begins at age five and never truly ends.

KATE SPADE

Happy Birthday to my former roomie and partner in crime, Melissa!

Destiny brought Mel and I together six years ago when I moved to Manhattan, KS, and it brought us together again when she took a job in Oklahoma City. We even dabbled in the roomie thing again, while she did a little apartment hunting mentioned here.

Keeping inline with birthday traditions, we will be dinning at one of our favorite spots, Matthew Kenney.

Nothing screams birthday better than relaxing outside with a specialty drink!

When it comes to desserts, we always look to Green Goodies for our favorite Salted Caramel Cupcakes and gluten-free options.

It was a Classen Curve kind of night for sure with dinner, dessert, and presents all from local stores.

It was a night full of fun and laughter, but for even more laughter check out Mel’s hilarious birthday blog post.

What is your favorite place in Classen Curve?

27 January, 2012

Cheever’s Cafe

Let your light shine. Be a source of strength and courage. Share your wisdom. Radiate love.

WILFERD PETERSON

Did I mention that I have the nicest friends and family? Living three hours away from my family means that I miss out spending some big moments with them, but they always make me feel like we are closer than ever.

Besides sharing my birthday with Ellen DeGeneres, there is one special lady who takes the cake.

My maternal grandmother, Nanny, turned 77 yesterday. I am her oldest grandchild and feel so blessed to share her birthday with her. When it comes to role models, I wouldn’t want to be like anyone else.

Even though I couldn’t be with my family this year on my actual birthday, my heart was filled with love from my wonderful husband and friends. From thoughtful gifts from friends this weekend to surprises from my co-workers, I had the most wonderful birthday…I kind of forgot I was venturing in to my late twenties…kind of.

I have only been working with these amazing women for a few weeks, but they sure did surpass any of my expectations. From the minute I walked in the door, they were in full celebration mode.

One thing I can really appreciate from working with women is their appreciation for a good nail polish, and these girls know their polish! There was an abundant selection of OPI for me to choose from for my birthday treat. Are you kidding me? I’m in Heaven.

Then to top it off, my supervisor made the most over the top cupcakes ever. She combined a few ideas form Pinterest and ended up with chocolate cupcakes with caramel filling and savory sweet icing. Whoa!

They were so moist and delicious!

After work the hubster took me out for a real birthday treat at Cheever’s Cafe. This was my second trip there, but I had forgotten how wonderful this restaurant truly is. They specialize in “American cuisine with Southwest influences with a variety of sublime prime steaks, seafood and salads.” Even though I still enjoy seafood, they have a wonderful vegetarian section.

For starters we had the calamari.

This is one of Chris’ favorite appetizers, and I totally enjoy it as long as I don’t have to eat the big tentacle pieces. What I enjoyed about Cheever’s is the melted Parmesan and banana peppers along side. Delish!

Chris is fairly predictable at restaurants. Whenever he sees a fried steak of some sort (sandwich or just steak), he usually has to have it. For dinner, he selected the Cheever’s Chicken Fried Steak with Jalapeno cream gravy.

It was HUGE! Pretty sure it was two full-breaded chicken breast. I was torn between the Mixed Seafood Tamales and the Cherry-Pecan Crusted Salmon, so I was happy to hear that the waiter recommended the salmon above all. Made my choice a whole lot easier.

He was so right! It was perfect with the crunchy, pecan yet chewy, cherry crust. I wish it were my birthday every day so I could eat this treat!

It wouldn’t be a birthday without cake, so why not indulge in a cupcake and strawberry cake in the same day??? I only turn 28 once right?

My dogs were lucky enough to enjoy in the treat too since it was chocolate-free.

Nellie still can’t stop thinking about that cake…me either.

I enjoyed my cake cozied up to a good movie. We watched 50/50, which I don’t even know how to describe because it was so funny and sad at the same time. I would consider it a good choice though.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to all of my marvelous family and friends who made my birthday so special! I love you all so much.

What do you look forward to on your birthday?

22 January, 2012

Green Goodies

Take pride in how far you have come, and have faith in how far you can go!

UNKNOWN

This weekend was so nice and relaxing. I don’t want it to end. There was someone occupying the kitchen for most of the weekend, so I stayed clear and enjoyed letting someone else cook.

Meat is not something you see much in my kitchen, unless it is something that Chris brought home. I do agree that the way Chris hunts is more humane than factory farms, so I am at peace with it. Today he was whipping up some Taco Soup made with duck. Hum…I’ll have to ask him how that turned out.

Then this afternoon, our kitchen was a straight chem lab with Chris filling bottles with his home brew and some concoction to carbonate them. With all the beer and meat taking over, I’m glad that my sweet friends, Taylor and Mel, brought home a birthday surprise!

Are they not the most thoughtful people ever? I was totally surprised because I had pushed my big 28^th birthday to the back of my mind since it wasn’t until Thursday, but Cupcakes make me ecstatic. They also got me gift cards for cooking lessons at Matthew Kenney – see most thoughtful people ever.

The cupcakes came from Green Goodies by Tiffany, which I have been dying to try. It’s right around the corner from Matthew Kenney in the new Classen Curve development.

Their menu has both gluten free and vegan cupcakes, and I could not tell the difference at all.

These cupcakes were picture perfect! I can only dream about making cupcakes that look this good.

Oklahoma City Thunder represents. Yeah that is the mascot Rumble on the blue cupcake.

There were plenty of cupcakes to go around all weekend. They even got a separate box of vegan cupcakes for me, the animal lover. Check out the Hostess Ding Dong look-a-like. It even had white frosting filling.