Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my husband, best friend, and soul mate.  There isn’t anyone else that I would want to navigate this crazy world with than you.  Hope your birthday was a great one and we share many more together.

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For Paul’s birthday, I decided to get him the leather recliner that we had been “oohing & aahing” over in Ikea back when we were making our weekly trips there.  When we finally decided to chalk up the money and buy it though, it was gone!  But I went back about a month ago looking for some vases (another post on those projects) and saw it.  I knew that I needed to switch gears on what I was planning for his birthday present.

Paul's surprise bday gift!  It's already become a key part of our home.

To celebrate his birthday, we went downtown with N & M and met up with some of Paul’s coworkers on a rooftop lounge after work on Thursday.  The weather was PERFECT!
The next day we just took it easy relaxing around the apartment.  I knew that Paul was in love with the chair when he had already napped in it within 24hrs of us owning it :)
That evening, we headed to Al Raha mall to get some shwarmas from the food court and do our grocery shopping.  I had asked Paul what kind of cake he wanted for his bday and he asked for “the yellow cake with strawberries that my grandma makes.”  I emailed her a few days ago and got the recipe.  I was a little concerned about finding the right ingredients, but she warmly encouraged me with “Necessity is the mother of invention”  Luckily I found everything except the Jell-O vanilla pudding mix.  I bought some pre-made pudding and used a little of that instead.  It was the first layered cake I’ve ever made.  I think it is also maybe the third cake that I’ve ever frosted (I’m not a big frosting person—but this frosting was perfect, almost like cool whip).  I have to say that I’m pretty proud of how it turned out.  I’ll definitely be making it again.

Fresh Strawberry Cake

The birthday boy

M’s Fresh Strawberry Cake Recipe
Bake 2-layer yellow cake (Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Classic Yellow Cake)
Fluffy Frosting: Follow Dream Whip pkg. directions using Jell O vanilla instant pudding.
Place sliced strawberries over frosting on first layer.  Top layer do same thing  (M likes to use whole halves on the top, so around the edges sometimes she uses round toothpicks to keep the strawberries on the cake--especially when the weather is warm)
Frost side of cake with same frosting.
(Tip: Use 1/2 wooden skewers to hold entire cake together)