the birthday DAY

Adam's birthday was on a Sunday and he loved every minute of it. First was breakfast with a package of mini cereal boxes... a tradition from my family (where did I get my addiction to cereal?!). Next we were off to church... and he loved going to church/primary on his actual birthday. Once home, he requested "white macaroni and cheese" for lunch... Aunt Mary's recipe that's a simple but delicious one. Then he got to open a few presents and several cards from family and friends. He loved all the attention. I think his favorite gift that day was the marble racing set thingy (what are those even called?). We've had fun putting it together many times since then. A close second was a particular Chipmunk movie that I had to track down on Amazon because no one really sells it anymore. It's an episode called "Batmunk" that Adam used to love checking out from the Tosa library. Fun times. Anyway, for dinner he requested steak (after a quiet suggestion from me... since our wonderful neighbors had given us some a couple of days before). Unfortunately, we didn't get to really enjoy the dinner for very long because I had caused too much stress in the kitchen attempting to make this pirate cake. Looks pretty simple, right?! Well, Guy and I (whose idea was it again?) had the grand idea to put the pirate ship on water. Makes sense, right? And since I had made a volcano cake w/red candy lava for my nephew's bday not too long ago, I thought I'd just use that candy recipe and make it blue for water instead. But let's not just make water. Let's print "Happy Birthday Adam" underneath the water! I'm far from being a candy-making expert, and it's all about timing, temperature, stirring, etc. ...Needless to say, it only took us FOUR tries to get our blue "water" to the right consistency (and correct amount to fill the plate). So, that's the roughest part, right? The candy/water base? I totally cheated and just used a box cake mix and even pre-made frosting so the rest was supposed to be easy. Unfortunately, I'm not the best pirate-ship-cake-put-together-er... and it was falling apart all over the place. I finally resorted to tying a frieking (yeah, I was even using the word "frieking" by that point ;) ...though I'm still not sure exactly how to spell it)... tying a frieking ribbon around my cake to hold it together! Then I just frosted over it to conceal the evidence. Awesome idea, right? Well, too bad this pretty much makes the cake uncuttable and, therefore, basically inedible by this point. Oh, and I forgot to mention that there were half a dozen dowels (skewers) scattered throughout the cake from when Guy tried to help me solve the problem. Oh well. Problem basically was solved, I frosted the cake, and did my best to finish it off in some sort of pirate fashion. Except now I had to make cupcakes to serve everyone because I couldn't really use the real cake, I ran out of eggs and couldn't run to the store because it was Sunday, ... ran out of frosting because of all the patching up I was doing... had to make real frosting from scratch (imagine that)... put about a cup too much cocoa in it... yada yada yada... Long story short (or not so short) the cake and cupcakes finally get finished enough and we have a few friends over to enjoy. Ended up being a fun night! So, if you've made it though this way-too-long paragraph, you can now reward yourself w/a few pictures. KatieL, those are your delicious chocolate chip cookies as well (w/M&Ms)...SO good! :)

Still good enough for a lick! :)

best birthday EVER!

Isn't that first one the greatest picture ever?! I love it. Adam was SO excited to get a strike when we went bowling for an early bday activity last week. Karin & her fam were nice enough to join us since they were going to be out of town for Adam's official birthday. We even made "bugs in the dirt" cupcakes and everything. (We crushed up grasshopper cookies for the "dirt"... the mint flavor was delicious!:) Guy and I really were there too... our camera has been taking some very fuzzy shots lately so not many turned out well. Don't worry (I'm sure you were), I'll get some of us out here somewhere.

another first

Last night we were playing at our friends' house when Adam jumped from a height that he shouldn't have jumped from and got his first broken bone. ...A "supracondylar fracture of the elbow" to be exact. But he was a pretty tough sport about it! No tears. Just plenty of moaning and whimpering. No worries, though. Watermelon, Cheetos, and a Tom & Jerry cartoon brought him back to his old self in no time (oh, the tylenol w/codein probably helped, too). I was surprised to have him sleep in late this morning and he's barely complained of pain at all today... maybe we won't need those meds after all.

The third picture is from earlier in the day yesterday when he was such a great helper for me. Doing dishes for like 30 minutes straight (he'd wash em and I'd put them in the dishwasher), and then check out his laundry-folding job! No help from me... he laid out the towel, folded the clothes, and put them in the appropriate piles. I think I'm learning how to take advantage of his OCD tendencies! ;) What a great kid. We're so blessed. Hopefully it'll be quite a while before we (he) ever have to deal w/another broken bone!

p.s. For those of you who've been bugging me 'cuz I haven't posted in a while... I hope you're happy now!! ;)