Monaloca

With April 14 falling on a Saturday this year, we chose to have both our anniversary dinner and Nalani’s birthday party in one fun-packed weekend. This translated into an an anniversary date night on Saturday followed by a pizza party on Sunday. Last year we split up the celebrations, opting to postpone our anniversary dinner to the following weekend, or perhaps month. It’s the first year I don’t remember what we did, which makes me think it does matter that we mark the day for us as for well as our littlest girl.

To ramp it up even more, I signed up Nalani for Sunday tot soccer at the park down the street, with the first class happening a mere three hours before party time. Plus, Melina had ballet earlier that morning. Phew! This meant we spent Saturday morning in full party prep mode, instead of at the zoo or Little Farm (in honor of N’s bday) or on a San Francisco city walk (in honor of our anniversary) as we would have if the events were on separate weekends.

Between party shopping and Grandma and Grandpa’s (babysitters for the night) arrival on Saturday, I did manage to take the three kids on a bike ride around the park while Joey hung his Green Griffon Games sign from our garage (something he’d wanted to do for a while). And then, I finally got around to baking the cake. Our favorite banana cake recipe from scratch. By myself. But with three small helpers. I pulled it out of the oven less then 30 minutes before Joey and I headed out for a fabulous dinner and bottle pinot noir at Chez Panisse Cafe.

And woke up the next morning to find it had a huge crater in the center. What’s more, I knew immediately what went wrong: between Melina slipping off the stool with an egg in her hand (it cracked) and Kai shouting out the recipe over Nalani’s cries to please have the stirring spoon, we’d forgotten the melted butter.

Instead of homemade banana cake Nalani ended up with a deliciously sweet vanilla bean cake from a mix Joey bought early Sunday morning at Trader Joe’s. And it looked adorable in the shape of a panda, complete with chocolate ears, nose, and mouth. Better yet, we all – and especially Nalani – had a fabulous time at her pizza party late Sunday afternoon. We had nine kids (with Tejal and Maya representing the two-year-old set), and around a dozen adults, including Uncle Kitt and Grandma and Grandpa, up for their second visit of the weekend.

Hooray for Nalani! And – have to say, equally important – hooray for Joey and me!

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