Birthday Party

In the past, for my birthday I have generally gone out with family members to a restaurant, looked at the menu, and realized that I can't eat anything, so I special order a dinner, have my family notify them that it's my birthday, have the staff sing their rendition of a birthday song REALLY loud, receive the special "birthday" treat, and then watch them eat it :) (which I actually told them to do this... why waste free dessert!)
But in celebration of my birthday this year, I decided to invite my sister Lindsay and brother in law, Trevor over for dinner. We had a FEAST!!!! It was such a good dinner. I think we should duplicate it for Thanksgiving this year. We made chicken fajitas. Now I know this may sound plain for everyone, but we added some great extras to it.... homemade red pepper hummus (yes, I have finally figured out how to make a really good hummus), homemade guacamole (Trevor knows the right mix to create this perfectly! - it was so good), salsa, sour cream and cheese (FYI for Jen - I didn't add the last two to mine :) In addition we had these chips I recently discovered called "Guiltless Gourmet." I get the unsalted ones that are baked.

At the dinner party, I was able to put to use some of my nice serving pieces and dinner setting pieces, since I don't tend to use my plate chargers everyday. I realize now that I took this picture before we put everything on the table. Because when we sat down, it felt like there was food all around us.

After we realized we ate more than we should have, the Dayton's came over and sang Happy Birthday. We all sampled the psuedo "carrot cake" I created. It's made with carrots, brocoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, and cilantro. We dipped the veggies from this great dip recipe I found in my grandma's recipe book I got last summer (page 96). I also had purchased some "Baby Ruth" mini candy bars for those who like to dress up their veggies even more.

After we moved the cake closer to the TV and watched the CES fireside and just snacked on the "cake" for the hour.
When the dishes were cleaned up, we made smoothies. We realized though that we were still really full from everything else we had eaten. So we split one smoothie 3 ways. Lindsay and Trevor were also gracious enough to take some "cake" home with them. The cake began to look really funny as we took the vegetables off. It was also painful at times, as we kept poking our fingers on the toothpicks already exposed. It soon began to look like a cactus. So this morning I was sitting and looking at my apartment, and am trying to figure out how long I should leave the decorations up for? I was not in the mood to take them down last night or this morning. Perhaps steamers and balloons will become "in style" for home decorating.