A Golden Birthday

This year is Sam's "golden birthday" (also known as a "champagne birthday"), because he's turning the age of his birthdate (ie turning 26 on March 26th). So of course we needed to do something special. We had some friends over to celebrate, and had a great time with "golden" and "champagne" as the theme!

Amazon came to the rescue when it came to buying champagne glasses in bulk.

And when it came to gold lanterns, which I strung up above the doorway to the living room.

Much gold. Much champagne (thank you Carrie!).

And a fantastic spread - some of our favorites from Dave's Fresh Pasta (thank you Beth!). We had actual pasta from Dave's as well later in the evening.

Many sparkle lights!

Is the photo out of focus, or just the person who took it at 3am when the festivities ended?

We also had some party activities in line with the theme, like this fantastic treasure chest pinata (thank you Bridget, Karen, and Danielle!).

They filled it with some amazing treasures, including little Goldschlager nips and chocolate gold coins. Also a hefty dose of parachute men and dinosaur toys. Ultimately we were unsuccessful in our attempts to open the pinata inside, since it kept falling to the ground with every thwak. We moved outside, where I pitched it to Sam and he made successful contact. Only some of the toys and nips were destroyed on contact...

For dessert, I made cupcakes. In gold wrappers with edible gold stars sprinkled on top.

Behold my DIY cupcake stand! It's just a white plate on top of a silver candlestick. I had enough cupcakes for two plate's worth, so luckily I have a pair of these candlesticks - seen here on the mantle performing their more usual function:

It was a lovely evening of good friends, delicious food, sparkling wine, and plenty of shenanigans.

One of my favorite images from the morning-after clean-up effort:

Poor T-rex wind-up toy that lost the top of his head in the pinata explosion. He also lost his right arm, not visible in this picture. What is visible is adorable Mr. Owen in the background.

Wishing a very happy birthday (which is actually tomorrow) to my beloved Sam!