Well, for the first time in a long time I skipped blogging
entirely yesterday. Mea culpa. I was just so exhausted yesterday I couldn’t
write before bed.
We had a very busy day yesterday. I cleaned my room, straightened some
downstairs, and scrubbed the staircase by hand because it looked yucky. It’s
beautiful hardwood and I put some liquid wood cleaner on it, it’s beautiful.
Hard work, though.
We took mother to lunch at Red Lobster. We were going to go someplace
a bit more upscale, but we were running out of time. We had a good lunch,
though.
At 4:30 my cousin Lesleigh came over and was a huge help, getting
the food on the table. She has catering experience so she knows little tricks
like garnishing things with parsley and lime wedges and cherry tomatoes.
A number of folks I thought were coming to the party ended up not
being able to come, for various reasons. We had a nice sized crowd, though,
about a dozen folks. That meant everyone could really visit, and most all the
grownups fit into the family room. Mother’s cousin Patricia and her husband
drove from Smyrna, which is a good 45 minute drive. They stayed several hours
and seemed to have a good time.
The Redwines, the family of Mike’s tennis buddy Clay, came and
stayed all evening. They brought their two girls, too and all the kids played
games and had a good time.
Almost everyone who came brought food, and the table was quite
crowded, but there was enough to make dinner from. We supplied: Honeybaked ham, cold shrimp,
artichoke/spinach dip, an egg salad type dip covered with caviar, Mayfield’s
French onion dip and chips [it’s the best French onion dip out there], apple
slices and dip, bowls of pretzels and nuts, etc. Our neighbor made Mom’s
birthday cake and it was beautiful – a rum cake decorated with flowers, with
Happy Birthday Elva written on the platter. It was delicious, too. The recipe
is the one from the Pioneer Woman website.
Carrie Redwine brought a wonderful onion soufflé that was heated
up in my oven, and most of it got gobbled up quickly. Lindsey brought a
beautiful cheese ball, homemade with chunks of hot pepper in it. Everyone loved
that, too. My neighbor Luana brought Mother some beautiful flowers. Pat brought
her some incense sticks. Lesleigh brought a beautiful bulb planter. Our neighbors sent a lovely bouquet.
We gave Mother her presents after breakfast. Bruce had sent a
beautiful bouquet of flowers. I gave Mother some new Crocs with fur lining, and
several other things. The project that I was up half the night working on was a
Memory Book. I put in photos and things from each decade of her life, arranged
chronologically. We have tons of photos but in dozens of albums. I thought it
would be fun for her to have a photo record all in one place, plus I included
some bonus materials like an ad for the Varsity restaurant, where she and Dad
went a lot when they were “courting.” I wish I had scrapbooking talent, but I missed
that gene.
Everyone enjoyed my apple dip. I will post the recipe here because
it’s a big crowd pleaser and it’s so easy.
APPLE DIP
Cut 4-5 Granny Smith apples in slices and dip in pineapple juice
Mix the following:
8 oz. Cream cheese [let soften to room temp]
¾ cup brown sugar
¾ cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ bag of toffee brickle
pieces
You need to mix everyone pretty hard to incorporate the sugar and cheese. The brickle pieces are found where you buy chocolate chips in the grocery store.
This was the food table - before the additional food was even put on it! Nobody went away hungry.
Here's Mother with her cousin Pat and her husband Bob.
Here's our neighbor Luana, with Carrie and her husband Stan, and of course Miss Coco, wearing her special Georgia Bulldogs shirt.. [go Dawgs! she said a few times, in Yorkie-Poo...]
Here are the kids. One of the twins was wearing high heels...
I try to always take some realistic shots, but I was glad Carrie smiled for me, otherwise this would look rather boring...