Bon Anniversaire, Jeff!

Today Jeff turned 29 years old. My dear husband, growing up so fast! Sniff.

I hung his birthday card on the inside of the cupboard door by the cereal so he’d find it first thing in the morning, but he didn’t see it! I thought maybe he was doing some goofy Jeff thing and “prolonging the birthday pleasure” by not taking the card out of the cupboard, so I didn’t say anything. By lunch, though, I had to ask if he had seen his card. After I made him hunt for it, I finally showed him where it was.

Then I gave him his birthday present: the MarioKart Wii game. (we’ve had that game for a long time, but our disc got too scratched to use, so we haven’t been able to play it in over a year). The other part of that gift was that I’d actually play the Wii game WITH Jeff. Can you tell I love this guy? [Video games are definitely not my thing].

THE BIRTHDAY DINNER: We fondly call it “Jeff’s pizza.” He learned how to make this yummy white (crème fraiche) sauce bacon-mushroom drop dead pizza in France on his mission, and he has taught me well so I can make it how he likes it. We don’t have pizza pans, and our oven is moody, so we made it on mini cookie sheets in our trusty toaster oven. It turned out rather well. Jay loves it too, except he picks off the mushrooms. I was happily eating his pile of discarded mushrooms until I saw him suck the sauce off of one and then place it, all slimy and slobbery, on the reject pile. eew!

The dinner! I’m still wearing my apron—oops! Rose is on my lap. I didn’t realize that she wasn’t tall enough to make it into this picture. My smile is always so stiff when I’m busy concentrating on getting everyone (including myself) in the picture!

Drumrollllllll…. THE CAKE!!! I got the idea for Jeff’s crepe cake from one of my favorite cooking blogs. Doesn’t it look cool? It is a stack of 21 crepes (they’re 11 inches in diameter!) with alternating fillings of a “Nutella fluff” that I invented and peanut butter cream cheese frosting. The whole glorious heap is slathered in shiny, rich chocolate ganache. I wrote the words with left over PB frosting. I kind of got carried away with the French theme and wrote happy birthday in French. I had to use a dictionary to spell the words on a cake right! Jeff made the crepes, by the way. I may have learned how to make his pizza, but I leave the fine art of crepe-ing to my husband. (ah, I love a good pun) I assembled the cake last night and let it refrigerate nice ‘n firm all night.

Blowing…

…blowing…

…gone!  I put 8 candles in the cake so the 21 layers + 8 candles = 29. How’s that for birthday symbolism? We’re goofy like that around here sometimes.

The first piece! I wish you could see all 21 layers better. Next time I’ll spread twice as much filling between each crepe. That should help. But it still looks cool, eh?

The cake really was quite tasty. The texture was kind of like a flour-less cake—dense and moist. But it had a light cinnamon twinge to the flavor from the crepes. Definitely will be doubling the filling next year (Jeff decided that this cake will become his yearly birthday tradition).

We had our local family members over for cake-time, but we should’ve invited about a dozen or more people over to help us eat this big beauty! Then again… [sneaky grin] who needs flat abs of steel anyways?

I am so thankful that Jeff was born 29 years ago! He is such a kind, patient, loving, giving person, a great daddy, and a superb husband. I love him. Jay and Rose do too.