Another birthday party!

I have a very lucky husband who gets to celebrate his 60th birthday twice!  The first party was for our lifetime friends and this party was for our new "local" friends.  This time it was lunch at home.  I decided to do roast meats as I didn't want Philip slaving away over a hot bbq on his birthday and to tell you the truth it is a lot easier.
So the day before the party I prepared as much as I could.  The menu was:

• Roast Beef & Mushroom Sauce
• Roast Pork & Gravy
• Marinated Roast Chicken with Pineapple Salad
• Jacket Potatoes with sour cream
• Baked Whole Pumpkin stuffed with savoury rice
• Coleslaw
• Sweet Potato Salad
• We were going to serve Garlic Bread with the meal but my darling hubby tossed it into the oven still wrapped in its plastic.  Hmmmmm.....a bit of a gooey mess to clean but hubby was just trying to help :-)

It worked well as all I really had to do on the day was roast the meats and toss everything else together.  I made up this cheese platter for when the guests arrived at 11.00 am.....it looked just about the same as the photo.....and we finally sat down for lunch at 1.30 pm.  It was perfectly timed as our last guests, who had said they would be arriving late, just walked through the door as we served lunch. 

My lovely friend Kate and her daughter Jodie made a fabulous birthday cake that we devoured for dessert.  The top cake was mud cake and the bottom was fruit cake.....Philips two favourite cakes!  They were so so delicious......thank you Kate!

It was a lovely day both weather wise and friendship wise.  We sat around and chatted until the last guests departed at 8.30 pm.  Perfect.

The Birthday Cake

So many wonderful comments about this delicious cake.....thanks Kate.

Ladies first!

Nose....
Our absolutely delightful great nephew....Kit.  This little boy never stops smiling.

Time for "happy birthday" and to cut the cake.