Birthdays are a Big Deal in this house.

Actually, I don’t celebrate birthdays as much as birth months. I enjoy birthdays so much that one of my top picks on our wedding registry is the Candles and Confetti musical stand and matching dessert plates.

Photos from bedbathandbeyond.com

Fiance actually put up a fight when I added these to the registry! Even if we have two “offspring,” as he expressed in front of the sales girl, we’d only use them four times a year. It was frivolous, he argued. I ignored him and told the girl to add them. I think they’re special pieces that will be such a sweet touch to birthday celebrations.

For fiance’s birthday, which always falls on or around Thanksgiving, I decided to make a chocolate pumpkin marble cake from Back to the Cutting Board. I had toyed with a couple different ideas: Toblerone cake? Classic yellow birthday cake with chocolate icing? But this one seemed just seemed unexpected, and we both love pumpkin.

In keeping with birthday tradition, he picked out the accompanying ice cream: Cappucino chocolate chip gelati, which weirdly went really well with the cake.

Birthday place setting.

I’m already cruising recipes for next year’s birthday — which will taste even sweeter on the (contested) birthday china.