surprise!

Yesterday was Nic's 29th birthday.

Three days before that was Ben's birthday.

So to celebrate, my friend Debbie and I threw them a small, family focused, surprise birthday brunch last weekend.

Surprisingly to us, despite some odd requests of us to our husbands to get them to go to the grocery store together, they had no clue what we were up to.

It was a fantastic morning.



Quick decorating while the husbands went out to get the "forgotten" champagne and grapefruit juice.


Brunch:: quiches, salad, sun dried tomato cheddar scones, coffee, fruit


Hiding behind the couch, getting ready to surprise the guys


They are at the door..


Surprise!


Sam, excited to surprise his Papa


Birthday boys. Totally surprised and ironically, they were talking about their birthdays right before they walked in on their surprise brunch.


Mom and Roger made it down for the weekend.


After brunch. Stuffed but ready for dessert...


Peanut butter chocolate pie for Ben & carrot cake for Nic


Counting the candles






One girlfriend, eh Nic??


A joint gift - a beer brewing kit!


Future brew masters.




After dessert






We love our friends.

The food, before and after::



Happy happy birthday, Ben & Nic!

vegan banana split cupcakes

One of my favorite little guys turned one the other week.

And to mark his 365 days of life in Iowa, I made him some banana split cupcakes.

His choice, of course.






I followed the recipe to a "t" from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, with a few modifications {of course}.

I subbed out the all purpose flour for whole wheat pastry flour, because I like sort of healthy cupcakes.
I used almond milk instead of rice.
And I made up my own pineapple preserves by boiling 1/2 chopped pineapple with 1/4 cup orange juice until the pineapple was soft, and then pureed it with 1/2 T chia seeds. Much better than store bought stuff {plus, my HyVee didn't carry pineapple preserves}.





I ended up making two batches of the cupcakes because the first batch sank so badly.

The second batch wasn't too much better.

But nothing that a little extra icing couldn't take care of.

Plus, that just meant that I was able to make special cupcake deliveries to a few friends.





They didn't complain.





And I am pretty sure the birthday boy approved of them too.




That Kierstan is my favorite person ever.


Hurry up, I want some cupcakes.  Get your grubby hands away from my cake!


OKay, now you can have a taste.

Happy Birthday Ray!

no babies were harmed in the taking of these photos...

This past weekend Nic and I were able to road trip out to Topeka, Kansas to visit our good friends, Ben and Debbie, who ditched us approximately one year ago and moved to Alaska.  We planned never to forgive them, but then they went ahead and had this cutie - Sammy.  I am afraid my "two year plan" is ruined...My mom would be so happy.

Before Ben and Debbie moved to Alaska, the four of us would get together often for dinners, drinks, game nights and even had a few Sunday afternoon coffee and cake days (doesn't that make us sound old??).

And then they moved.  And I cried.  And they blamed us for making them move to Alaska.

So when we found out they were going to be in the Midwest again, we packed our bags and hit the road.

I bet Ben and Debbie wished we would have stayed put in Washington, especially when I started feeding their baby Bud Light...

At the end of the night, I am so glad we made the trip to see the Stanton family. Now it's our turn to make the trip up to Alaska.  They really had to twist our arms to agree to go up there again.