My Birthday Week

We started my Birthday celebration last weekend in Charlotte with Ryan's family.  We usually pick a fun menu/theme and build the rest of the night around it.  After Ryan and I had a very yummy and successful Asian Night, I decided to choose Sushi for my meal.
We started off with Edemame and Spring Rolls.  The great thing about this meal is it gave everyone a chance to get involved.  We all made a couple spring rolls.

We made several sauces to use for both the spring rolls and the sushi: spicy mayo, soy sauce, spicy chile soy sauce and a sweet mango chutney.

We then preped the food for the sushi and made the rice.  We used special sushi rice to make sure we got the sticky consistancy we needed.

We went one at a time and made each roll different.  It took a few tries to get the hang of it, but we were professionals by the end!

Since we made the rolls one at a time, we got to try a lot of different combinations, but we were stuffed in the end.  Here are some of our creations.

For dessert..no we did not have a sushi theme dessert!  Miriam made a Pumpkin Dump Cake.

Ok so now fast forward to my actually birthday...Halloweve.  Ryan made me breakfast and the best coffee ever, a Pumpkin Latte.  We spent the day shopping and went to dinner at Mez....so good!  Our waitress happened to have a gluten allergy so she was great at helping recreate some of their dishes so I could eat them:)

We went to my parents house on Halloween to celebrate my birthday and to trick or treat with my little brothers.  We played outside, grilled out and Michelle bought my favorite Ice Cream, Mint Chocolate Chip.

After dessert we were ready for Halloween night.  My parents live in a large neighborhood that really gets into Halloween.  Last year they counted and had 187 trick-or-treaters!  I love Zach's costume, he was Mr. Potato Head and he decided that on his own...haha!

Zach made it through two streets and asked to go home, he must have worn himself out running and trying to keep up with Jake and his friend.

When we got home he helped me pass out candy.  I think he might have enjoyed this more than going from door to door.

When it got really busy, Zach just sat outside on the steps to pass out candy with me for almost an hour, which is necessary because the door rings every 20 sec.  What a fun night!
Thanks to everyone for my birthday wishes, messages, cards, and presents!