Happy Birthday, Babe!

It's the big day! Well, Jon wouldn't think so, but I do. I love to make a big deal about birthdays. It's not Jon's favorite trait of mine, but he deals with it. Brooklyn chose her own gift for Daddy this year. She wanted to get him a puzzle so I let her choose. Then I "subtly" tell her that she and Daddy can do it together :). I'm sure Jon will love that! He actually won't mind. He loves to spend time with Brooklyn and now that he doesn't have school constantly on his mind (just the bar, that's a whole different story), he plays and plays with the kids. Anyway, back to the birthday...I got him a dang good gift this year, if I do say so myself. He's going to be spending some time with the pro at a course in UT! I was way excited to give it to him and I can't wait for him to use it! Just for him, I tried to make his favorite treat. He wanted Coconut Cream Pie, and I've never made a pie before. Needless to say, I was a LITTLE nervous. But, I sucked it up and got to work. My pie crust went ok...it didn't look very cute but tasted ok. Then came the actual pie part. Let's just say it looked good... I thought I'd done such a good job. Then Jon took a slice. My short-lived triumph was over. He took a slice and suddenly you couldn't tell that he had even taken one. It was so runny! We couldn't even pretend it was a custard. I told him to throw it in a bowl and pretend it was bad pudding. I'm so sad! I thought I would be such a good wife to make his special treat. I think I'll stick with cakes and leave the pies to Jon. Oh well...at least I tried. Happy Birthday, Babe! I hope it was a good one (even though the birthday treat STUNK!!).

Check this collage out clockwise from the picture top, left. Considering that picture #1, the captions correspond below...

The center picture is of the completed pie, before singing and cutting...Looks impressive, eh. Yeah well, looks CAN be deceiving!

1. The pie crust pre-bake. So far, so good.

2. Baking with Pennies....I don't have "baking beads"

3. All baked. Looks ok, nothing special.

4. Beginning the filling...again, so far so good...

5. More filling, successfully separated eggs..

6. Simmering filling, although things seem to be going well, this is where we think it all went awry.

7. Filled pie shell, no overflows, that's good. Still seems to be ok...

8. Blowing out the candle...we couldn't NOT do it, Brooklyn was very concerned that Daddy got a candle. And she wanted to know why he only got one? I didn't have the heart to explain that we didn't have enough for the true number...

9. More candle blowing. Doesn't Mason look thrilled?

10. The "piece" of pie... p.a.t.h.e.t.i.c

11. The pie after the first "piece" was "served"

12. The pie after three attempts of "pieces" were "served"

I told you it was bad...I guess, at least I tried, right??

Happy Birthday, Jon!