My Birthday

I had a wonderful Birthday this year! Mckay spoiled me. He had a wonderful early surprise present for me. While we were in Denver over Christmas break, we left Dallin with Mckay's parents for one night and stayed in the Westin Hotel in downtown Denver.

It's a pretty nice hotel. This is what our room looked like:

We ate dinner at the restaurant in the hotel.

I had the most delicious peppercorn crusted Salmon and Mckay had Chicken Parmesan that was as big as my face. We walked around the snowy downtown area for a bit and then went back to the hotel for room service dessert: Bruleed Lemon Bar with fresh strawberries. It was so yummy! I had such a nice relaxing time and I've never been away from Dallin overnight before. Dallin had fun with Grandma and Grandpa Easton, but he was extra clingy when we got back.

We celebrated my Birthday early while we were still in Denver with the Easton family. We had dinner, presents and ice cream.

In the picture, I'm wearing the birthday outfit I got from my mom: a really cute skirt and sweater.

I got Dr. Suess books, a necklace, a "Green Eggs and Ham" water bottle, lotion and bath salts, mint chocolate chip ice cream flavored gum (thanks Alex!), and pie pans.

But not just any pie pans, these are personalized using glass etching.

2 pans say "PIE-licious" and 2 say "PIE-tastic." Thanks to my wonderfully creative siblings-in-law who made these for me. I love them!

On my actual birthday, we were finally back in Indiana. It was a pretty low key day. Dallin let me sleep in and we all relaxed at home. We watched some of the new movies we got for Christmas and I made a delicious dinner: Lemon Risotto.

People always tell me that I shouldn't have to make my own birthday dinner, but I really enjoy making it. It's a birthday present to me to be able to try out a new fancy recipe. The Lemon Risotto was pretty tasty, but not quite as lemony as I expected it to be. And I think I added a little too much rosemary. I'll tweak things when I make it again.

For dessert I decided to go against my tradition of having a Boston Cream Pie for my cake. (Sorry Joseph, you guessed wrong.)

I felt like having a Raspberry Streusel Pie this year.

It's a recipe that my mom used all the time when the missionaries would come over for dinner. It had been a long time since I'd had it so I made it and boy was it delicious.

And when you top it with cream,

...you might even call it PIE-licious.