Perfectly Simple Birthday

I’m coming up for air after a super-busy weekend. Spent, elebrating G’s birthday with a simple and perfect small family party. Not big planning or production, just casual and fun.

A while back I asked G what sort of party he might want. He’s a pretty quiet kid and generally prefers smaller groups. All he wanted was a small family cookout (with cake, of course). He’s a teenager now, so not wanting anything too theme-y isn’t much of a surprise. He did want homemade, vanilla cake with “real chocolate” icing. His words exactly. FYI - “real chocolate” means the sinfully-sweet canned icing from the grocery store, lol! Easy-peasy!!

I did try to get a little creative with the cake decorating and there was a bit of an icing mishap. Well, really more of an explosion.

It. Went. EVERYWHERE! LOL!

So, I figured we might as well have fun with it . . .

I know, I know, but you only live once. Right?

For dinner, I put together a “Build-Your-Own Burger” bar (with bacon, fried onion strings, etc.) and it was a hit! (I’ll be sharing more details on the components and ingredients in a later post!) And basically spent the day making the cake and knocking out different dishes for the burger bar and barely broke a sweat. The cake was a Vanilla Cake by Rosie Alyea on Sweetapolita and it was divine. I didn’t use the icing recipe, of course but it looks yummy too.

I sort of felt bad about not having things more planned and perfected but the boys played basketball outside and later we all played “heads up” which was so much fun for everybody.

We had a wonderful time spent with family, eating burgers and cake, playing games and generally enjoying ourselves. But there was no perfectly executed “Pinterest Party” here.  Trust me, if you’re fed up with the Pinterest party pressure, this is the perfect antidote.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend too! See you soon!