Sunday, September 28, 2008

A Happy Birthday Among the Germans

John's birthday was yesterday!



A couple of months ago John requested German Chocolate Cake for his birthday. I had never made one before, so I was a bit nervous. I just used the recipe on the German's Sweet Baking Chocolate box and it turned out great! From the looks of the baked cake, I was worried that it wasn't going to be very moist (it doesn't look very moist, does it?)and wasn't sure about the delish factor. But it was and it had it. We are having the last couple of pieces for dessert tonight. Along with the best vanilla ice cream ever, from Trader Joe's (it also happens to have about 100 calories more per serving than cheap-y vanilla ice cream -- but so worth it).

A local farm here, Underwood Family Farms, is having Oktoberfest this weekend so we had to hit that up. We listened to German music and watched men dance around in lederhosen and ate knockwurst with sauerkraut. What could be better? (Actually, if it wasn't 95 degrees it would have been way better. Also, actually being in Germany.)



We put William in a big pen of beans and I think he had more fun than he's ever had. He was very sad and cried when we finally had to leave -- maybe I'll have to put some beans in a box for him to play with here at home.



I think we made it up to him though, by getting these amazing handmade toys from a booth there at the fest. These wooden toys are handmade by a really nice man named Arlen, right here in town. I was freaking out at his booth. The toys are all adorable, really well made and very reasonably priced.

I have looked at wooden, American-made toys online and they are pretty pricey. And you have to pay shipping on top of that! That won't stop me from getting a couple of choice things, but I am really happy to have found someone local who makes such incredible toys. I wish he had a website so you could see all of his other toys -- helicopters, stack rings, cars, tic tac toe, tops and more. I'm sure you'll eventually see more of them here on this blog. :)

We also had dinner out with friends and attended a very fancy baby shower (which you'll soon hear more about), this weekend. And John got a panini press for his bday so we will definitely being trying that out this evening. Yum! Happy Birthday, John!

5 comments:

Adventures in Heywood said...

Mmmm, cake....

Lisa said...

Those toys are amazing! Love them.

Kaja said...

There was a lady I knew that had a "sandbox" in her house, but she used rice. That way she could vacuum it up. Will might like something like that, if he liked the beans so much. I guess you could just use beans too..haha!

Bell Blog said...

Happy Birthday! The cake looks yummy! :)

alyssa said...

I just made a German Chocolate cake last week too (for my Dad's bday), how funny.