Kimberly Gets Her J.D. On + Lunch at Landmarc

Not only did my sister Kimberly graduate from law school yesterday...

but today is her birthday! Happy Birthday Kimmi!

So with this in mind, my family had a lot to celebrate yesterday. We started the day at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, where the graduation was held.

After a nice ceremony, Kimberly received her diploma! Here she is near the podium, about the cross the stage as her name was called.

My sister Christine and I were determind to be the loudest, girliest screamers and cheerers ever.

After the deed was done, we met Kimberly for a small paparazzi-style photo shoot with the gorgeous Manhattan backdrop.

Once 1 million the photos were taken, we headed over to the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle for lunch at Landmarc. I love this place! Not only is the food fantastic, but it overlooks Broadway and has gorgeous decor with an industrial wine bar vibe. I like.

We of course started the meal with some crusty bread. I also enjoyed a glass of Malbec (my fave)...

...while Kimberly enjoyed a signature martini. Loving that color.

For an appetizer, Christine and I shared a based of smoked mozzarella fritters with fried zucchini sticks...

Look at that cheese!

And for the main attraction, I had Pasta Genovese - a rigatoni with pesto. Luckily, the pasta portion was small, which kept me from falling into a cat nap at the table!

After lunch, we headed back to Kimberly's apartment for some birthday/graduation cake and gifts!

My mom ordered a cake from Mendoker's Bakery in Jamesburg, NJ, our all-time favorite bakery for cakes (and black and white cookies!).

This cake was designed to Kimberly's own specifications. One layer each of vanilla and chocolate cake filled with {a lot of} chocolate fudge and topped very generously with vanilla buttercream. I mean, really, I can't think of anything better. Look at that fudge! Ah!

And that is why today I will be on a liquid diet of smoothies and tea. Followed by zumba. And cardio strength.

Anyhow, Congratulations and Happy Birthday to my little sis! Yesterday was a great day :)

So what I want to know is...if you could choose any cake flavor combination in the world, what would it be?

Mine would be my old favorite - moist chocolate cake with lots and lots of vanilla buttercream!

Scenes from the Birthday

Good morning! This weekend was this guy's birthday...

For his actualy birthday on Sunday, Shaun chose an ice cream cake! It was so long since I've had ice cream cake, and it was fantastic. I love those little crunchies!

We had so much fun celebrating with friends on Saturday and Shaun's family on Sunday. On Saturday, we had an apartment full of friends, fun and laughter! Oh and of course lots of food!

My friend Laura and me...Laura is getting married next Saturday! Congrats Laura! Can't wait to celebrate with you and John next weekend

I love when our home is filled with friends!

In addition to lots of delicious dips, we dined on pulled barbecued chicken sandwiches, chicken salad veronique and orzo salad.

For dessert? Boston cream cupcakes and potato chip shortbread cookies with salted chocolate glaze.

And our favorite drink of the night? Bethenny's SkinnyGirl Margarita! Kimberly brought this over and I was so excited to give it a try. I'll have a write up this week for ya!

I can't wait to share some of the great recipes from the party with you guys this week! For now I'll leave you with that photo montage. How did you spend your weekend? What's your go-to party drink?

DIY Weekend + Birthday Brunch

Sometimes you just need to get things done.

This weekend, Shaun and I spent most of Friday night and Saturday spackling, painting and installing a new closet system in our den closet. It's a fantastic storage space, but it needed a whole lotta TLC. So I'm a little tired today. And a lot sore. Admittedly we did take a small break on Saturday night and headed to Michael Anthony's in Newport for some drinks, appetizers and basketball/giant moon watching over the Hudson.

Sunday marked my mom's birthday. It's a big birthday month for the Cannon-Humistons. If you recall, last week I whipped up this little beauty when we celebrated my mother-in-law's birthday with dinner and dessert at our place. Last year, my sister Kimberly and I threw our mom a dinner party at the old Humiston residence (more on that here, here and here). This year, my mom obliged to do something similar...but this time, Mom wanted brunch. At the new Humiston residence. So from DIY closets to DIY brunch, it was a busy one.

Mom, Dad and me

I absolutely love brunch. There is simply nothing better than breakfast food and prosecco-laced cocktails in the late morning/early afternoon. It's casual, fun and pretty darn delicious. I also love hosting. I bet you didnt know that. :)

For this little soiree, I set up our little bar with wine glasses and drinking glasses. I also used one end to house the desserts until singing time and to display some beautiful roses that my parents picked up for the occasion.

To start, we dined on smoked salmon with cream cheese and capers, blue cheese + honey on crackers and a giant bowl of fruit.

Mom, Dad and Kimberly

Oh and Shaun was on drink patrol. He mixed up some rum & diet for Dad, white wine for Mom and mimosas for Kimberly and me. Gotta love him.

Kicking off the main attraction, Kimberly made a fantastic salad with goat cheese, dried cranberries, sliced almonds and a honey mustard vinaigrette. It was just about the best salad ever.

We also got to work on a strawberry baked oatmeal (a healthy one that you need to make immediately so I'll be sharing later this week!)

and a goat cheese, roasted pepper and basil frittata. Oh and we also whipped up a little mushroom frittata while we were at it.

 

And in case that wasn't enough food for ya, you know we had to get down with dessert. In addition to a glazed blood orange loaf cake that I had frozen from last week...

...I was on a mission to make a dessert that Mom would love. For as long as I can remember, Mom has proclaimed her love for malt. Specifically Whoppers, the quintessential chocolate malt candy. So I researched (and researched) until I found the perfect recipe for some stretchy-pants-inducing chocolate malt cupcakes. Oh yeah. I went there.

Stay tuned for the yum-inducing recipe later this week because no doubt you will want to subsequently get your malt on immediately. We lit some candles and sang Happy Birthday!

The only thing missing from this fun, food-filled day was my sister Christine who is off at school. Miss you Stine Bean!

So that was how we spent the weekend. DIY'ing, spending time with family, cooking and eating ourselves into a coma. How did you spend your weekend? What was the last thing you DIY'd? What's the last thing you needed to break out your stretchy pants for?