Love is All Around

              

My family looks for any occasion to come together and celebrate.  Last night, it was for my cousin Nicole’s 40th birthday and love was all around with the 100 friends and family who came for her.  The bride, oops, I mean the birthday celebrant, is an amazing cook and pastry chef so of course there were sweets galore!  There was a candy bar, edible macaroon tree centerpieces, a sprawling dessert buffet, and a delicious 3-tiered wedding, I mean BIRTHDAY, cake!  I forgot to mention the M & M’s with the words “Happy 40th” on them.

  

I especially LOVED the giant gold foil mylar balloons spelling N–I–C–O–L–E and 4–0!  They were weighed down with little bean bags and the kids went nuts for them.  By the end of the night the balloons spelt N–O–L–E and the I and the C had wandered to other parts of the room.  Who knows where the 4 and 0 went.  Kudos to my cousin Bettina and Nicole’s best friend Viv who organised the event.

    

The cake was a Blanc Frazier from Ganache Patisserie covered in buttercream icing (so good).  The balloons and centerpieces were from Balloonatics.

  

Nicole and her older sister Andrea gave such touching speeches.  Nicole gave special thanks to the two strong women who raised Andrea and her, my grandma and my Aunt.  She cried, I cried, we all cried.  We proceeded to clang our glasses for a kiss after the speech.  It was hard to remember that we were at a birthday party and not a wedding.  No kiss, unfortunately!

Happy Birthday, Achie (older sister in Hokkien, our Chinese dialect.  I call all my older cousins this as a sign of respect) Nic!  As Achie Anne said in her speech, “It’s all downhill from here!”  At least you have a lot of friends and family who love you to slide down that hill alongside you.

If you want to go the DIY route, here’s a great balloon letter idea.

This one’s fun too, mini letter mylar balloons.

Hope you’re out there celebrating all the small and big events in your lives with your loved ones. Life’s too short not to.

P.S. That’s my grandma in silver.  She’s turning 90 next year! Doesn’t she look great?

– SS