Spiced Munchkin Pie and French Crumb Cake
Two little doughnuts turned one and three! The party ran on Dunkin and was sponsored by Coca-Cola.
We kicked off November with Athennia trying her hand at Tuscan chicken with rotini and garlic bread for dinner Wednesday night...
Then she and I started watching Fringe later that evening.
Friday afternoon we signed paperwork to tentatively push settlement on our property to 29 December, pending the USDA having funding available again by then. (Huge thanks to the seller Scott and his realtor Mike for their continued patience throughout this ordeal!)
And then on Saturday, my Aunt Lois and Uncle Jim came in from Indiana!
I had not seen them in just over two years, and Athennia and Riley hadn't even met them yet; so, we were all excited to get over to my parents' house ASAP on Saturday :)
We stopped at Dunkin to grab some coffee and munchkins on our way over, and then we had a lovely afternoon and evening visiting, catching up, and gorging ourselves on pizza and cheese steaks for dinner...
Also, let the record show that I imbibed a Mike's hard lemonade—which I insisted that Aunt Lois relay to my cousin Michela and her husband Aaron, pronto!
Think before you drink!
Sunday was Hannah's first birthday party—rescheduled from two weeks ago and combined with Olivia's upcoming third birthday since it's right around the corner at this point.
Athennia offered Kelly our services to show up early and assist with any last-minute details.
But, as we headed out to leave, we saw that one of our neighbors apparently earned herself some long-overdue karma the night before!
In this next picture, you'll see a red Versa (which belongs to our "diagonal-downstairs" neighbor Jeff, whom we like) and a silver Pathfinder (which belongs to our next-door neighbor Ruth, who doesn't really bother us beyond being an absolute moron in every possible way, though she absolutely annoys the crap out of Jeff and Lillian since she lives just above them).
But between the two, you'll see a janky white thing that looks like it Hyun-died last night...
Here's one American who isn't running on Dunkin! I think you're in need of a donut, ma'am!
Now, this car, dear reader, belongs to Speed Demon—who, believe it or not, is yet another character in our seemingly-infinite Game of Thrones-sized cast whom I'm pretty sure has somehow never made it to the blog until now.
Speed Demon is a black woman in her twenties or thirties who tears in and out of here on a regular basis and narrowly avoids mowing down at least two or three pedestrians each time she comes and goes.
Karma has been chasing her for some time, but she has always been faster... until now ;)
With Speed Demon out of commission, we made it out of the parking lot and over to my parents' in one piece; and Athennia and Riley took to entertaining the girls while Kelly finished up with the baking and Steve ran out to grab everyone lunch from Burger King...
As for me, I was appalled the day before at how ugly our garden looked since our latitude and longitude finally got frosted like a mini-wheat overnight Wednesday into Thursday...
So, I spent an hour harvesting the last of our tomatoes, then ripping out the remnants of the plants and mulching the mostly-empty garden with a few inches of almost-finished compost.
One Is the Loneliest Number
Eventually 3:00 rolled around and the party began.
Hannah is one!
Indeed she is.
She's... the only one, apparently.
No sense of any plurality here at all—oh, wait...
Remember last month when we got sponsored by Coca-Cola?
I think we need to coolify this party with a few cans of carbonated, sugary de-rusting solvent!
Just crack open a few cans of those, and strippers and a DJ just sort of spontaneously materialize; right? (I mean, that's how it always works in the commercials.)
We gave it our best shot...
The cans had been tapped.
The magic elixir had been gulped.
Now we just had to wait for the strippers and DJ so the fun could start.
It kind of worked, I guess? Although the wires must've gotten crossed somewhere.
I suppose that mermaids that only exist from the waist down are technically topless...
...And, though we didn't end up getting a DJ, we did get my cousin J.D.—who drove all the way from Millersville and wore a Game of Thrones shirt with a direwolf on it—prompting Athennia to call him "The King in the North!" all evening long... which would arguably make a hell of a name for a DJ.
So, Coca-Cola indeed saved the day, and the fun started pouring out...
Time to Name the Doughnuts!
Everyone got to change their pronouns names...
Here's Sweet Long John posing for a pic with me before she helps Spiced Munchkin Pie get her name tag—and her game face—on...
...Because suddenly it seems like everyone here is walking around with a full-on stripper name like Cherry Baby-Cakes or Strawberry Bambi.
Here's Frosted Apple Fritter, Sweet Long John, Sugary Glazed Donut, and Chocolate Twisty Roll enjoying some hors d'oeuvres...
Chocolate Cruller Bite and Yummy Apple Fritter soon arrived (along with Plain Cinnamon Twist and Cinnamon Old-Fashioned, out of frame)...
French Crumb Cake and Spiced Munchkin Pie with their dad, Coconut Crumb Cake...
We had homemade baked ziti, meatball sandwiches, and salad for dinner; and then it was time for French and Spiced to open their gifts.
Ummmm, Sugary Twisty Roll? Please release French so she can make her way to the designated gift-opening location...
Athennia put a lot of effort into designing the girls' gift bags: She even did "Hannah Banana's" from scratch!
We gave Liv P Is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever...
...And, for Hannah Banana, it was kind of a no-brainer...
Then the girls opened a bunch more presents...
...One from Sugary Apple Fritter and Coconut Cinnamon Twist.
...One from Coconut Cinnamon Twist and Yummy Cinnamon Twist.
...One from Chocolate Cruller Bite and Plain Cinnamon Twist.
...And finally one from The King in the North, also known as the formidable Frosted Jelly-Filled!
Just Desserts
Then it was time for dessert!
For a doughnut-themed party, there was a curious lack of doughnuts on the dessert table.
So, we sang "Happy Birthday" and then proceeded to stuff our faces with everything under the sun except doughnuts...
Then Liv played with some of her new toys...
Was it a good birthday, Liv?
Meanwhile, I woke up to find this this morning...
...So, the only person who actually got a doughnut was Speed Demon—the one person in this story who wasn't invited to the doughnut-themed birthday party.
