overdue! Farmor's 80th Birthday

Easter weekend was quite busy.  It all culminated on Easter Monday with Farmors 80th birthday 'bash' in Sweden. Such a beautiful day, a gorgeous place and fantastic company.  Great day.  Enjoy some pics!

I held a speech for Farmor and of course I started crying pretty much as soon as the first word came out.  I don't know why I do that and why if I know I will cry that I still put myself in these positions, pfft.  Practice makes perfect, maybe?  However, it all went over well and everyone understood my Danish in the midst of tears, haha.

I was once again really struggling with extreme sunlight and the camera.  I just need to read some more and figure it out.  Again, practice makes perfect.

Overall a fantastic day, it's still all Farmor can talk about, haha.  In the process of making a book for her with all the pictures.  

Now we're looking forward to my grandparents coming to visit at the end of May.  Just hoping this ridiculously nice weather holds out.  I can't get over how nice it has been lately!

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lagkage

I've written about the infamous lagkage before.  Lagkage is the traditional birthday cake here in Denmark. Although funfetti cupcakes were a huge hit,  tradition usually wins in this country.

But noone makes lagkage like farmor does, definitely not me.  I made my first attempt just recently.  I made a surprise cake for a friend but it was quite the process!  End result was great cake but still just not quite Farmor's.

Enjoy our process!

Meet Wall-E who helped us along the way. 

My first attempt was to make the 'cake' part on my own at home.  It did not rise enough so into Farmor I went.  She was a good help.  "Let me see your teaspoon before you put it in" - clearly there are standard metrics and there are Farmor metrics.

But finally got a somewhat suitable cake made.  It wasn't perfect - still had problems rising all the way.  We think perhaps the eggs we used were too small.

We made the cake one day and let it cool and stored it at room temperature in a ziplock type bag for a day.  In the meantime the next steps involved decorations for this special cake.  Jeanette (who we made this cake for) is an archeologist - which may explain some forthcoming photos.

Once the outlines were made, then it was time to use the chocolate.  This was a Christian process, his meticulousness pays dividends on tasks like thisl

We went back to farmors to start the layering process.  We needed to make vanilla custard creme and let it cool, dice pinapples and whip cream from scratch.  First layer we used was raspberry jam.

Then came vanilla custard. Please note a concerned Farmor watching my every move, haha.

Up next was a level of chopped pineapples and more vanilla custard.

Layer of cake, and it was nearly finished and isnanely ugly looking.  However, that's the nice thing about lagkage.  Once you put on the marzipan, you would never know the difference!

Coated it with whipped cream. Wall-E is like the archeologist of the future - don't you think?  He goes around collecting things after a civilization is over... suiting helper I thought!

Rolled out the marzipan... (in between two plastic bags)

And on it went... with a giant crack... whoops.  Not too far from an archeological cake after all.

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However, the crack soon did not matter!  We used some sweet cookie crumbles as sand and ta-dahhhh... A little archeology dig cake!

She loved it... at least I'm pretty sure she did!  And I don't think she's ever had proper Farmor lagkage to compare it to, so no difference there!

Wall-E took some great notes so we can learn from mistakes and make the next one even better! :)

I can probably give you the recipe as it doesn't matter - you have to be farmor to make it as good as she does.  I found this recipe for the sponge cake layers that would be easiest for my US friends and family to try. 

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farmor's birthday party invitations

So...the buzz around here is all about Farmor's birthday.  In case you don't know who Farmor is, she is Christian's grandmother on his dad's side.  Far in Danish means dad and Mor in Danish means mom so it is kind of a direct translation of dad's mom - farmor. :)  Anyway, she is turning 80 and it's quite the bash she is trying to plan.  She is absolutely over the moon about this party, it's all she can talk about.  I thought it might be nice and fun to make her invitations.

You know might remember that I hand made our wedding invtations (both times) as well.  I actually quite enjoy making cards.

The paper I used is very me but also very Farmor at the same time.  I love the royal designs and 'new-age' floral designs and she loves the classic floral designs so there was a mix. On the inside I glued crumbled tissue paper to give some texture and flare.

I took these pictures this past weekend and the actual invitation texts weren't in yet but you get the idea.  I pinned in the invite text on the right-hand side.  Closed the invite with dual colored ribbons and put in a plain white envelope.  They were finally finished today as I used my sick day to finish up the addresses.  

Every invitation was different.  Here are a few favorites in particular, though.

Farmor says that I could sell my invitations on "the... uhmm that thing there with the computer...".  Yes, well while it was a very sweet compliment I told her that there are much more talented and creative people out there on that thing called the internet doing just that. :)

The party will be on Easter Monday up in Sweden for lunch.  Farmor is from Sweden originally and she hopes it will be easier for her siblings to come this way.  It's on a horse farm - the same one Christian and I did some decorating for his Uncle this past summer.

I think it will be really nice, very much looking forward to it.  But what ever will Farmor have to talk about afterwards? ;)

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married to an old man :)

Just a mere 15 minutes away from being married to a guy in his late twenties.  

Happy birthday handsome!  Best husband a girl could ever hope for!!

I know he'll hate these pictures but I find him to be as handsome as he was when we met some NINE years ago.  Wow!

Love you Christian Bo Numsemund Als! 

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much love for the acquarius

I suppose there may actually something in the stars about me finding so many wonderful acquarians (spelling/use?) in my life.  Early - mid february is nearly filled daily with a close friend's birthday.

flowers from farmor - made by uncle bjarne

On the 4th of Feburary we celebrated swalshy.  Bring us to the 7th of February and it's Mike Prible's birthday.  The next day, the 8th (today) is Seb's birthday (happy birthday gorgeous girl!). The 11th is my one and only hubby's birthday.  The 14th is Christian's older brother's birthday and finally we have Carissa who is the 15th.  Phew... that's a lot of birthday wishes to remember!

Last week I baked cupcakes and we had a little happy hour in town with friends to celebrate my birthday a bit late and Chr's a bit early.  Funfetti cupcakes with cream cheese frosting with sprinkles on top - holy delicious!

They were a big hit. I was pleasantly surprised Christian's grandmother didn't wrinkle her nose to my box made creation - perhaps she didn't realize, haha.  

Over the weekend we celebrated Christian's best friends' little boy, Nicholas', 2nd birthday (another Acquarian!).  He was so sweet and so cute.

Sunday we celebrated yet some more with family brunch.  Champagne, french toast bake, egg bake and my ever so favorite, Farmor's homemade lagkage.  So good.  Even though the cake was technically for both of us, you'll note the decoration was very jilly. ;)

This weekend brings our celebration to for each other - a weekend getaway to Paris.  SO excited! Will be so great to get away and spend Christian's birthday and Valentine's Day in one of the world's most romantic cities!

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