birthday weekend wrap up

you know what i love and hate about birthday weekends?

i love that there is a great reason to eat large amounts of yummy food,

and i hate the fact that i have no self control when there is yummy food around.

we kicked off saturday with yummy cinnamon sugar pull apart muffins.

i found the recipe on pinterest, originally from Wendy See Wendy Do, and it was super easy and super yummy!

cinnamon sugar pull apart muffins

1 roll of Pillsbury Simply Rustic French Bread dough

1/2 stick of butter

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1. preheat oven to 350ºF.

2. in a small skillet, brown butter over medium-low heat, about 5 minutes. You know the butter is browned when it turns a light caramel color and smells slightly nutty. ((Be careful not to burn the butter!)) Once browned, set the butter aside to cool.

3. remove bread dough from tube and place on a cutting board. roll it out flat with your rolling pin, and slice into 1.5-ish inch squares. wendy says to cut the slits in the roll of dough, which is probably easier than what i did.  but...i forgot to read that part of the directions.

4. in a bowl, combine the sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. try not to spill it all over the counter...story of my life.

5. brush each dough slice with a lot of brown butter,  then sprinkle with the ENTIRE sugar mixture. stack the dough 5-6 slices high on top of each other.

6. place two of the sliced stacks, side by side, vertically into a greased muffin tin.  repeat with the rest of the stacks.

7.  before you put the muffin tin in the oven place it on a larger, rimmed baking sheet.  this will catch any butter/sugar overflow and avoid a very smokey oven.

8. bake muffins for 20-25 minutes until tops are golden brown. allow to cool for 10 minutes, and then gently remove from the tins.

9. enjoy with a giant glass of milk. :)

that night, we headed to a hibachi grill for some yummy food and a fun show!  i know most hibachi grills are the same, but i'm still so impressed everytime.

isn't bub-hub lookin fly in his chef's hat??

after dinner we headed back to the apartment for cake and games!
for days, i had been agonizing over what kind of cake i was going to make, and i finally decided on a texas sheet cake with homemade chocolate icing. yum!!
and it was a success!
my mom has a texas sheet cake recipe that she's made for years, and it is always a go-to favorite.  so i knew i wanted to make it, but i also knew i really wanted to use my cake stand...rough life.
i'm not sure if sheet cakes are technically supposed to be stacked, but i was brave (and stubborn) and tried it, and it was a success! it sunk a little in the middle, but with enough icing, you can cover up anything. that's my motto at least.
i also tried out my new cake decorating tips that i got for freeeeee (with my HEB coupon!) to write out happy birthday bryce! 
it was super easy.  all i had to do was screw the tip onto the icing tube, get my hand to stop shaking, and move really slowly.
ehhhh.....sort of super easy. :)
and i know the happy birthday candles were probably a bit of overkill,
but i couldn't help it, they were just so fun!

after cake, we played a few card games, then a few rounds of mad gab, and of course, catch phrase!
have you ever played mad gab?? it's pretty much my favorite game of all time. you should probably go play it riiiiiiight now.