Yesterday...

was a day of birthdays!  And none of them were little people.  (bonus!)

My friend turned 40 yesterday, but because my sister-in-law's surprise birthday party was yesterday evening, I asked my friend if I could make her breakfast.  I really would love to have thrown her a big bash (it's 40!!  that's a big one), but I don't know any of her friends, and it wouldn't have been much of a bash with just us!  Plus, I suck at planning parties, and am MUCH better at cooking for people.

She said yes, so I asked her what her favorite breakfast food was.  She started to go with something easy, but I insisted that she tell me her FAVORITE food.  So she confessed that it was eggs benedict.  EGGS BENEDICT!  was what I was thinking, but what I said was "that's cool, I can make that."  LOL

Since I've never made, but happen to also love, eggs benedict I had to do some research.  I had seen a recipe for a simple hollandaise on my favorite recipe site : www.thepioneerwoman.com, so I searched through her library of recipes to find it again.  A good hollandaise can make or break eggs benedict, and she has wonderful taste in food, so I trusted her recipe.  (Unlike some that I have to "test" before adding to my growing binder of recipes.)

And crazily enough I had just watched a portion of Martha Steward Living (I hate Martha Stewart, just so we're clear), where she was demonstrating how to make eggs benedict!  I didn't see enough to know why she was doing the demonstration (if it was her recipe or someone else's), but she definitely made it look like a breeze!

Anyway, to make this rather long story shorter...  They came out great, along with country potatoes that were NOT as great, she busted out an incredibly expensive, well aged, purchased-in-France bottle of champagne, and it was an amazingly great breakfast.  Happy Birthday Suz!

And then off to a play date for Avery in the middle of the day, and then to get ready for my sister-in-law's party.

Her husband and my father-in-law planned the whole thing, and my f-i-l asked me to be the bartender.  Well, he asked me if I knew anything about being a bartender and I said no, but promptly volunteered for the job because I would LOVE to be a bartender but don't know anything about mixing drinks since my newfound love of alcohol is relatively recent!

But!  I have an iPhone, and apparently....  there's an app for that!  Woohoo!

(And he printed out the recipes for Cosmos and Lemon Drops, so we had those covered.)

So I got busy making sure EVERYONE was drinking, and what kind of bartender would I be if I didn't taste the concoctions I was pushing??  So, needless to say by the end of the evening I was VERY happy and VERY friendly! We completely trashed my f-i-l's house (so sorry!) and I was barely upright and couldn't help clean up, even though the sensible side of my brain was telling the foggy, giggly other side of my brain that I really should!

All in all, it was a fun day!