My soon-to-be sister-in-law Elisa’s birthday is on Valentine’s Day, and we had a birthday dinner at our house for her on Friday! My mom prepared a delicious sashimi dinner while I was tasked with making the cake! Elisa is one of the girliest girls I know and loves pink, so I wanted to make a very princess-y cake that would befit the birthday girl!
I have wanted to try a ruffle frosting technique that I’d seen on Pinterest a while back, and I thought that this was the perfect opportunity! I stacked ombre layers of the cake on the inside, and frosted light pink ruffles all around the cake. I was pretty happy with the result!
Ruffle cake for Elisa’s birthday
Top view of ruffle cake
Ruffling detail on the sides
Happy birthday Elisa! ⤠The birthday girl loved it – Mission accomplished!
The ombre pink layers turned out pretty well, too!
Mio’s friend Junna turned two on February 9, and we invited over on Saturday to celebrate with her and her parents over lunch. I brought over some handmade mini heart pies for the intimate celebration!
Making heart-shaped mini pies… â¤
Mini heart pies out of the oven! I made about a dozen of them.
Junna-chan showing us that she is two with her fingers. So cute!
Junna’s dad made cream puffs in lieu of a birthday cake.
Blowing out the candles.
Mio and Junna playing after lunch.
Cutiepies!
Thank you Junna-chan and family for inviting us to be a part of your special birthday celebration! We can’t wait to see how you’ll continue to grow… 🙂
Some snapshots from Superbowl Sunday! We went to watch the game with some friends over in Maryland. Dan and I were the only ones cheering for the 49ers in Raven country, but they put on a great game.
Football whoopie pies I made for the Superbowl party. 🙂
Watching the Superbowl on the projector. It was quite an impressive set-up!
We celebrated Dan’s birthday with a quiet dinner at home and birthday cake, as we’d already had our fancypants dinner last weekend. For dinner, I made Dan’s favorite — unagi (eel) donburi — and for dessert, I baked and frosted a German chocolate cake (also his favorite!). It was my first time making the coconut pecan frosting from scratch, but it was surprisingly easy and turned out delicious!
The German chocolate birthday cake I made for Dan!
30! A milestone.
Putting the cake decorating skills I learned this year to use!
Homemade coconut pecan frosting on top and in between the layers.
The handsome hubby turns 30!
Dan was psyched by the Android series 3 collectible dolls I got him for his birthday!
Dan’s favorites from the collection. 30 years old but still a kid at heart! 😉
Happy 30th birthday to my better half! Thank you for being such a wonderful husband to me, and a loving father to Mio. I’ll be joining the thirties club soon enough, in a couple weeks!
Last Saturday, a bunch of my high school girlfriends and I took a Thai cooking class at Sur La Table in Arlington to celebrate our dear friend Xiaolu’s birthday! This was my first time taking a cooking class (aside from my cake decorating class earlier this year), so it was a new and fun experience for me! I love learning how to cook new dishes, and Thai is one of my favorites, so it was really exciting, and the fact that I could learn with all these girls that I love made it all the more enjoyable and memorable! 😀
The ingredients for Thai coconut curry
Chopping up the ingredients for cucumber salad
The birthday girl sharing a laugh while cooking… 🙂
Thai coconut curry!
Taste-tesing.
Listening to the chef.
Cucumber salad! This was so delicious!
Taking a break to eat our first course of the curry and cucumber salad. It was delicious!
The bestest and I, reunited!
The chef teaching us how to cut mango for mango with sticky rice.
Cooking pad thai in the wok.
…while the other girls look on.
Xiaolu and Mimi, all smiles!
Angel and Mimi hard at work.
The completed pad thai!
Mango with sticky rice! Yum!!!
Surprising Xiaolu with her birthday cake.
Taking a group picture in the cooking mirror!
Together with our chef, who was a great teacher!
Happy birthday, Xiaolu! Thank you for letting us celebrate with you ♥
