Happy Birthday, Anna!

Anna turned 11 yesterday!  It's the first time in a long time that her birthday fell on a Tuesday, so she asked if we could stop at Shoppers and get donuts for her class (because their donuts are huge, delicious, and cheap--$5.99/dozen!).  We ended up buying 3 dozen donuts, only picking "normal" donuts, as per her request--chocolate, glazed, sprinkle, and striped.  She took 18 donuts for her class to enjoy, and I brought the other 18 home with me for the Rivendell boys, plus the other kids who aren't in Anna's class.

The boys didn't want to wait for Anna to get back home at lunchtime to eat their donuts, so here they are, toasting her continued health and happiness with their donuts, lol.

Anna picked out a week's worth of menus for her "birthday week".  For the actual night, though, she picked grilled steaks, roasted baby potatoes, steamed mixed vegetables, and a mixed berry fruit salad.

It was all delicious!  We got the steaks from our frozen food co-op, so they were really cheap, and I wasn't sure how tough they would be.  I marinated them in this recipe (although I didn't bother blending the ingredients in a blender), and they were quite delicious.  The roasted baby potatoes were AMAZING!  I used this recipe here.  It was easy as could be, and SO good.  I roasted a 5 pound bag of baby potatoes from Sams, cutting them all in half, and we only had a tiny tub of them leftover.

Anna got some fun presents, including new ear buds, which she was quite happy about, a thermos for her lunch box (she has been dropping massive hints about wanting this so she can take hot soups, etc. for co-op lunches), the Hidden Figures book (young readers edition), and a book called Home Quick Planner, which included peel and stick furniture and architectural symbols.  It has a big grid with these reusable stickers for walls, windows, doors, and furniture, so you can design your own houses and place the furniture.   She loves doing that, so she's already had fun playing around with it.  I'm sure the stickers won't last long, but it will be fun while it lasts!  She also got 2 cookbooks from Grandma and Grandpa, so she is already planning out new meals to try with those.

We had ice cream last night, but Anna hasn't had a chance to make her birthday cake.  She wants a carrot cake this year, and I have a really good recipe for one.  Maybe this afternoon?  She's planned ribs for tonight, plus I'm doing a lot of cooking for the mock trial team as they head off to the state tournament Thursday.  We'll see . . . I'm sure she won't forget!

It ended up being a beautiful day, which was a nice surprise, because it started out pouring down rain.  We had to really run in and out of Shoppers with our donuts!  Anyway, it was beautiful in the afternoon, so the kids could all go outside and play.  You can't see very well, but Verity's hair had all these cute curls all around the bottom of her head!  Even Grace's hair had a little bit of curl to it!