Happy Turkey Birthday

The problem with a four-month hiatus from your blog is you have a lot to catch up on. I realize I could just start from today and move forward, but then you'd miss out on all the excitement of the last few months. I mean, don't you want to know why we didn't have water for six weeks and about the 35 gallons of paint?!?!? I know I would...

So what do you write about today? Versus tomorrow?

I decided since today is the start of the countdown to my birthday I'd update you on that. What? A countdown to my birthday? Yep...I turn 30-something 11 months from today. I think that counts as a countdown.

At least my sister E, when she was about 12, thought the day of each month counted. She wrote on every "18" on my mother's calendar a reminder that her birthday was 8 months away...7 months away...6 months away...1 month away. So Mamacita...put it on your calendar...my birthday is in 11 months from today!

My birthday is the week before Thanksgiving, which was a travesty when I was little. My sister's birthdays were both close to Valentine's Day, so they had pink and purple and sparkly stuff in the stores around their birthdays. Me? Ucky yellows and browns and silly Pilgrim hats. (This was before stores decided the Christmas decor needed to come out mid-summer.)

Ironically, Thanksgiving is now my favorite holiday and I like oranges and yellows and all those fall colors. And since I got the turkey platter (more on that in another post) Thanksgiving is at my house. We split up the holidays and Turkey Day is all mine.

So this year my family descended on The Farm to eat up a 22 pound turkey, stuffing, pie, and turkey birthday cake.

What? You don't have turkey birthday cake during your Thanksgiving meal?

I mean, how could you pass up this?

Now how to explain...

So when I was little I promise I had my own birthday party. Good ones. Great ones. We're talking Willie Wonka parties complete with chocolate cake for breakfast while dressed up as Oompa Loompas. 

But when I got older and moved out of the house, my birthday sorta merged with Thanksgiving. Now on one hand a party is a party, and to pair my birthday with turkey and mashed potatoes seems like a pretty good deal. But it also brought up those memories of Thanksgiving birthdays of my childhood where all I wanted was sparkly pink hearts and all I got was pumpkins and gourds in that horned shell thing-y. I mean who wants to dress up like a Pilgrim in 3rd grade and make butter by shaking a baby food jar when your sisters get to make Valentine's mailboxes to hang on your chair around THEIR birthdays.

I'm not jealous or bitter. Really.

So...turkey birthday cake.

A few years ago my sister E decided to turn the tables on the whole thing and she made me a birthday cake shaped like a turkey. Her children, L and K, were so excited about the cake; I remember there was lots of jumping around. They couldn't wait to show me. 

And now, five of six years later, the tradition is that I get a turkey cake for my birthday. It makes me smile just thinking about it. Because who wants a plain ol' cake when you can get a TURKEY CAKE?!?!??! 

In case The Farmer is reading this, please note that I loved my lemon cupcakes you got me on my birthday...special order!

Every year we've had a different cake for the celebration and this year...cake pops! Yep...those things that seem to be everywhere now. My sister M made them for my nephew's birthday and they figured out how to make turkey cake pops. 

And as usual, the process was the most amusing.

Exhibit #1: M brought along the cake pop decorating book, but didn't realize it didn't have a cake pop recipe in it. What sort of cookbook is that?!?!? It just kept referring to the "basic cake pop recipe". 

Very helpful, Ms. Cookbook.

So she sat there on her iPhone trying to find a recipe that looked familiar. 

Meanwhile, Mamacita started mixing things up.

With my hand blender. 

I do have an actual stand mixer, in case you were wondering. 

After we found a recipe that seemed reasonable, nephew M2 had to taste the batter.

Yes, I know you shouldn't eat the batter. 

But I know you eat it too. 

To make these turkey cake pops you frosted the cake pop, then added fall candy corn for the feathers in the back, a tip of candy corn for the beak, and a piece of Swedish fish for the waddle. And don't ask me where E finds things like candy eyeballs, but she does. 

Of course quality control can be questionable at best.

And when you are three and you lose your cake pop off your stick...

...it looks like this.

And the claws...with a pout...come out.

Don't you wish your birthday was a week before Thanksgiving?