Happy Birthday to Joey (& Eli)

As promised, here's a short re-cap of my brother's birthday extravaganza.  Since I'm all but incapable of throwing a themeless party, I decided to use a bit of eavesdropping and some fortuitous timing to my advantage.  Over the last few weeks I'd heard the guys mention that they wanted to have a Men in Black movie marathon before MIBIII comes out this weekend...so, I took it upon myself to bring their idea to life.  I kept things as simple as I could...pizza, wings, salad, fruit, popcorn and birthday sweets (including but not limited to the biggest doughnut ever in lieu of a traditional cake).  Of course, I had to throw in a few ridiculous things as well, though they didn't all pan out as planned.  Case in point: I found a recipe for gin and tonic jello shots that supposedly glowed under a black light (a claim that turned out to be 100% false, though I guess that's what I get for trying to incorporate jello shots into my menu).  I also learned that no matter how neat they are in theory, sparkler candles are not a great indoor choice (they're kind of scary, they don't blow out and they will make your smoke detector go bananas).  Other than that, everything worked out quite nicely.  Perhaps my favorite part of the night was watching the guys play with the hilarious yet ridiculous 3ft inflatable tentacle arm my roommate brought into their lives (you can't make this stuff up, right?).  More than anything, I'm just so thankful we got a chance to celebrate my wonderful brother (and my might-as-well-be-brother Elijah who's birthday is today).  They're terrific in every way.  Here's to their best year yet!