My Birthday

My 30th (gulp!) birthday was a couple weeks ago, so I figure I'd tell y'all what I did to celebrate it!  (Celebrate turning 30?  I'm not sure if that's what I was doing, lol - I just like any reason to have fun!)

On Saturday the 11th, the day before my birthday, I had my family over.  My family has been going through some tough times lately, and this was one of those days.  I had been planning this party for forever, though, and decided to go ahead with it anyway.  I spent the day before and the day of making food.  There's 12 of us, so I made a lot, but there was plenty left over (lots of leftover yummies for me!)  There was:

-ham and cheddar mini quiches
-red pepper, goat cheese, and spinach mini quiches
-mushroom tostadas with garlic mayo
-tomato avocado goat cheese crostini
-tortilla chips & salsa
-salt & vinegar potato chips
-strawberry marshmallow salad
-veggies & dip

I think that's everything!  It was a LOT of work but everything turned out yummy and all-in-all I enjoyed all the cooking :)  You can follow the links above to some of the recipes but keep in mind that I do tend to tweak everything!

I left my hubby in charge of dessert and he came through with chocolates as well as a Dairy Queen Oreo Blizzard cake! 

Here's some pics:

My 13-year-old niece gave me a paper crown she'd made that I put on and then completely forgot I was wearing it as I rushed to finish up the food!

I didn't have a chance to put on something nice before it was time to eat.

I bought some flowers and decorations from the dollar store including those nice white platters.

My cake!

My previously-mentioned niece stayed for the night and then the next day, my actual birthday, we brought her back to my moms. On our way to the city my hubby gave me some small gifts (a set of 3 glass cutting boards and an iTunes giftcard) and 2 great cards.  Hubby and I did some shopping - his present to me was new shoes, which I desperately needed.  Thankfully there was a big shoe sale on that day and I found 1 pair in my size of exactly the kind of shoes I was looking for, for 40% off!  We did some more window shopping, we ate supper at Boston Pizza, and we went to see the movie Step Up Revolution.  It was a good time.