Two years agoo, my father died of Alzheimer disease just like my father in law did last week...Since the dead of my father we try to come together with the family around the date that dad was born and have a get together in his memory. We had started having these Birthday BBQ a few years before Dad died and mom tought it would be a good idea to keep doing them and so remembering Dad's birthday by.
This gathering took place last sunday.We where lucky with the weather and
like always we had a good day with lots of food and drinks and with lots of laughs.
Of course I had to make something too and I invented a summer vegetable salad that I named:
It contains masses of fresh veg and a rather special dressing.
I cook all my vegetables separate because they all need different cooking times. I leave them crunchy as well. You af course can take other vegeatbles also.
Then I created this dressingCreamy sour cream and lemon dressing
Combine one small tub of sour cream with two heaped TS of good mayo.
Put 4 tablespoons of white wine vinigair in ( mine was flavered with minth), salt, pepper, some dryed salad herbs and the grated rind of a washed and untreaded lemon. It gives you a thick creamy dressing. Make it fairly acid at this time since. The salad needs this.
Toss together an hour before serving. The vegatables wil dilute the saladdressing a bit.
As always my younger brother was the barbeque master.
Here we are still on the appetizers
Guacamole and a spicy cold mango soup and spicy meatballs with tzaziki.
After the appetizers there chicken drumsticks, pork tenderloin, small steaks, lam cutlets, sausages and all different kind of salads to go with it. For desert I made my mini cupcakes. Mom said, not to much and to big since I just want a little nibble to go with the coffee. I said of course,Mom and brought 60 tiny cupcakes.....
Lemon cupcakes with lemoncurd buttercream and blueberry topping.
And the all time favorite chocolade cupcakes with pink buttercream and raspberry topping. Of course there where way to many as there was way to much food anyway but I did not hear complains when they where asked to take the leftovers home. I heard the last cc 's where eaten yesterday and they where as nice as they where on sunday!
I am still looking for insets for the cakeboxes for mini cupcakes. Can find them anywhere in Europe and the American shops won't send them because I do not want 1000 or so and posting is so expensive! If anyone can help it would be most apreciated.
It was a very nice family day and the star of the day was of course.....the latest addition to our family, our little granddaughter, Anne-Fleur!
Next to the bookcase is a little vintage desk and the chair from my grandmothers kitchen. I still see her sitting on that chair peeling potatoes and so. I also have her kitchen table but that one was to big for this room. I want to paint the little table white I think. This is one of the things I still need to do. If you then turn to your right you then will see the bed my parents bought for me to sleep in when I was a little baby. I painted it a aqua kind of blue and matched it with a quilt that I made myself and some lace Ikea curtains. The old red chair is to be recovered. That is the second thing I still want to do but I am hessitating to do it myself because it is a difficult but beautiful shape. This is one of my better vintage finds. I only paid about 35 dollars for it.
To your left under the window, stands this also vintage and very small baby's highchair. I bougth it many years agoo to display the replica porcelain doll's in that I made some 20 years agoo. This one sitting in the chair is the very first and one I made and the only once I made handmade clothes for. The doll sits on one my very first babyquilt. It is more then 20 years old.
This delightful metal flowering walllight I bougt from the same lady where I bought the blue birdcage from. It was just perfect for this room.
Anne-Fleur's daddy made this drawing when he was 5 or 6 years old. I found it last year when we where clearing our attic out. It fits the room perfectly. Anne-Fleur's room was her daddy's room for almost 25 years !
I you turn again, you see the dresser and the shelving unit. The dresser was bought when our daughter was a baby and I will now use it as a changing station. On the shelving unit sit a very special toy. My very special Cotton Rabbit all dressed out in pink with white kitty's on her skirt!
Next to the dresser this beautiful hook with a glass flower. I found these last year in a German Ebay store.
The thing still missing in this room are my two oilpaintings of my fifties girls.
I especially wanted to be in this room but they are nowhere to be found. The lays for years at the same place in my closet and when I wanted to put them up I could not find them anymore.
This is my last birdcage. I think I will move it to the baby's room too. I now resides in the bathroom. This is a very special birdcage for me. My husband and I got it for our silver wedding anniversary. Whe where surprised by this gift until we remover the paper inside the cage. Out came a beautiful bronze statue of two birds on a branch by the famous French animalier sculpter André Vincent Becquerel. I will show it to you next week.
I brown some mince meat and spice it up with black pepper, salt, sweet paprika and then I add all kind of diced tomatoes. Ad a bit of tomato paste and let it stew for a few minutes. Then add a few torn fresh basil leaves.
When I married we had no hydrangea's in our garden for a good many years.
A new variety for me. The flowers are a kind of purple/red and it has big heads of flowers. I think they will dry up most beautiful in autumm.
The purest white. I planted these in big tubs too. Don't know if that is a good idea when it gets cold.
I don't like lacecaps as much als mopheads but these are kind of nice
The Annabelle's are enormous this year. Flowerheads as big as 30 cm / 12 " across. But when it rains the stems break because of the heavynes of the flowerheads. So sad. But up to now we have been lucky and there has not been to much damage.
I love this variety. The softest pink and something between a mophead and a lacecap.
Why I have 3 jars or boxes related to smoking I don't know. Nobody smoke's in the house.
As you can see,it is really battered and brused. On the inside you can see remnants of the foil that traditionally covered the inside of sigar boxes and it also has the dividers for the sigars.
The second tabacco jar my daughter and I found it at an antiques fair. My daughter absolutely wanted it but she could not afford it, since it costed almost 150 dollars. But I also was charmed by it and so it went home with us. I know why my daugther wanted it. As always it was because there was a cat on it.
Once again it is a dogkennel and two little dogs lay at the door of there kennel that is overgrown with ivy.
Are'nt they sweet little puppies?
You now can understand why this little bulldog in his barrel means so much to mee. Want to see more of this factory ? Here is the link 
In 2008 I wanted a non traditional tree with dry branches witch I adorned with 70 white glass birds, some clear glass balls and some pampilles. There where also a lot of tiny snowballs on nylon threads and of course some white lights.
Full of white balls and all my mainly white glass figurative ornaments and once again all white lights.
2007
The cat Xmas tree. Not meant for the cats but it a tree and decorations with cats. 
I collect glass cat ornaments. The old fashioned kind.
In 2008 I designed this Cattery Chrismas tree with wood ornaments I bought at Ebay.I painted them in a greyish/blue color and made some shading on them. Later I gave the ornaments to my daughter since she said that she could not have a Xmas tree because of her 4 cats. This tree is fun for the cats since they can play with the ornaments, sleep under it and if somethings fall out, nothing gets broken.
Koko half asleep under the Cattery tree.
Pregnant Poppy sleeping under the Red Roses Xmas tree.
