A Sort-Of Expected Party

Or, 'The Post in Which I Include Tons of Pictures.'  (This is when Haley grins and greedily takes in all of the pictures.  Heehee....)

My birthday festivities started a few nights before the big day.  Like I said in my last post, I cleaned two houses, then came home and made my cake, staying up much past my bedtime.  But it was well worth it, as you'll see from the pictures!!

I literally threw my party together driving to piano lessons with my mom, which is also when I came up with the idea for my cake.  My mom said something about us going to go see The Hobbit and I said if it came out a week before, I'd totally go see it for my birthday.  But, sadly....  I remembered that I'd wanted to have a hobbit-themed party when it came out, but, due to Christmas parties, now thought it was impossible.  Not so!  Hey, even if my birthday was like a week before The Hobbit came out, that doesn't mean I can't still have a hobbit-themed party!!  Instantly, images of hobbit hole cakes flooded into my mind and I grinned.  "Mom!!" I giddily exclaimed.  "I can have a hobbit hole cake!!!"

(This is when I say, "Non-Ringers/Hobbit fans: Beware of the abundance of hobbit-y pictures to follow.")

Yes, I baked all this!  And all gluten- and dairy-free!  : )
Now, how does most of this make a hobbit hole cake?  I'm glad you asked!

That's how.
(The two little circles flat on the cooling rack were for the windows.)

The windows and (adorable!!) door in the freezer.

This is how I did the top of the cake.  Messy-looking, right?!  I was a little disappointed and hoped it'd still work!

Almost done!  I think I took this picture right after I was ready to put the green-food-coloring-dyed-coconut-flakes on the wet icing, but realized they were still soaking!  Whoops!  I spread them out on a cookie sheet and stuck them in the oven, then tried to work on the cake while they were speed-drying.

The completed cake!  Ain't it so cute?!  Not quiiiite like a real hobbit hole - everybody knows that hobbit holes don't have vines hanging down from the grassy top - but I liked it.  Everything I made the cake out of was edible - and no fondant or marzipan!!  I don't like fondant at all and all of the (five) pictures of hobbit hole cakes (very few - I had very little to base my cake off of!) were made out of fondant.  Yuck!

My green door with a knob right in the middle.  (At least that part is accurate!)
I'm very proud of it.  : )

Torn-up marshmallows and homemade icing-covered flax cereal.

My chimney!!  I made it out of Nutella, which I added powdered sugar to.

A hobbit-sized wood stack.  : )



My sign I put on top of the cake in the refrigerator.  At one in the morning, I thought it was very witty.

The morning of my birthday, my parents went out to eat breakfast with another couple.  "Us kids" had the house to ourselves and we made use of it.  : )

One of the best things about having a December birthday is the fact that my family can put their presents for me under the tree!!  I love it.  : )  (These are strewn out because my little brother and I had to feel and shake each one.)

The present that my littlest brother said was a bomb.  (It turned out to be an Avengers ball.)

Cutie-pie brother and I!

Me LOVES my Gamgee Landscaping shirt!!  (Take notice of the words around the 'G'.)
You can buy your own on Etsy here.

Of the three scarves I got for my birthday, I'll have to say that this one's my favorite.  My younger sister knit it and even let me try it on a few times to see if it was long enough , then stashed it away.  The deal was that she'd keep it til Christmas, but then she found the movie at Goodwill and Mom said to give it to me.  : )  I got to wear it to church on Sunday and enjoyed being subtly geeky.  XD

This, apparently, is the face Arwen gave my little brother when he said he was going to tell me what he got me for my birthday.  A little blurry, but I love it!

After opening presents, we just hung around and watched Horrible Histories videos.  : )  This one's my favorite.  (Special thanks to Anne-girl, who first posted the video on her blog!  One play and I was hooked!)  This is about the time that something occured to me....  I had an apostrophe epiphany and told my sister, "HEY!!  Rapunzel got a guy for her eighteenth birthday...."

My parents got home a while later and then we went to my grandparents' house, where some friends joined us for more present-opening, games, dinner, half a movie, cake, and the other half of the movie.  (Ever After, if you were wondering....  If you haven't seen it, hie thee to Netflix or some such entertainment-provider!)

Me opening presents.  So embarrassing with everybody staring at me....
(Sunday at church was much worse, however!  Everybody sang while I was up front after playing the final song with the rest of the the worship team!)

I'm planning on making some sort of sign to hang below it so that the "carry on" part is covered out.  It'll be dry-erase or something so that I can write different ones depending on my mood.  I'm seeing, "Longbourn is lent at last!" or "and Call Sir Percy" or "Enjo has a Red Vest of Power and Awesomeness" or "Bilbo has joined The Company" or even "Hey, it could be worse - NJ could be Marius!" 

All the kids playing ImaginIff!  So much fun!

Our awesome P-A-R-T-Y plates that can spell a lot of different things (like 'pray' or 'tar' or 'rap') and are very useful for a great many varieties of candy.  : )

 

Sticking those candles into my work of art was one of the hardest things I had to do all day.

(But it could be worse....  See below.)

The Scouring of the Shire.  *sniff*

And that was pretty much my birthday!

Expect the next post I do to be a long, gushy, fangirlish post about The Hobbit.  Sadly, I'll be cleaning a house, then going to two back-to-back Christmas parties on Friday, so I can't see it opening night....  *sob*  But we're going to the first available showing on Saturday!  (Right before a Christmas party at our house... which kind of means I can't watch it twice in a row....)  I'm also really glad Les Miz isn't coming out on December 14th....  I couldn't handle the overload of awesomeness!!  : )

Still wondering why My Guy missed his chance to proclaim his love for me....
~Eowyn~