I realized that I am several blog posts behind. January and February have been busy months and I got behind and never caught up.

Father and Pickles share a birthday in the first half of January. We decided that we would use our gift cards for the Cheesecake Factory (a gift to all of us from my brother William and his wife Amanda – thank you!) to go out to dinner that night, and have cake and party at home afterward.

Everyone enjoyed dinner. I spent the time waiting for the food to arrive walking outside with Mittens once she became restive. The wonderful thing about the location of the restaurant is it’s in The Woodlands Mall complex right on the Woodlands waterway. You can see what I mean in the photos.

The party afterward featured two cakes, of course. Father had red velvet with cream cheese frosting (half without nuts, for those who don’t like them), and Pickles had devil’s food cake with vanilla buttercream. He specified “no pictures” on his cake because he’s grown up now, but he did want chocolate decorations of some sort. I piped melted chocolate onto parchment paper and then wrapped it around the sides. Everyone said it looked like a Victorian cemetery.

And then presents…