Our little boy turned 11 this week!!! He is the one on the right having a balloon fight with his brother. I found these really neat LED-light balloons at Walmart and the boys loved them!
I made my super-dense and delicious mocha-chocolate cheesecake with a coffee-chocolate ganache on top. It unfortunately was as hard as a brick since I forgot to bring it out early for the party. Paul kept on breaking the new fancy tall and skinny candles because they wouldn't penetrate the top layer, so we had to pull out the short and fat used ones. Whoops!
Yes, we do reuse birthday candles. The boys generously lick them clean, then I wash them with a bit of warm soapy water and they are good to go. I guess that is a little gross, but you gotta have traditions, right?
He finally calmed down. He was ready for cake!
No bonfire this time. Unlike my cake at my last birthday...
Luke took this photo without any warning and the expression on my face totally cracked both of us up. As you can tell, I don't do botox. And I was bike-riding before the party so no makeup. I didn't want to show up the birthday boy. Hee hee!
Usually I have my real camera out for birthday parties, but I got busy and forgot to get it until the candles were lit. By the time I found my flash the cake was getting covered in wax and no one had any patience. So there you go, badly-lit phone pics.
Oh well, not like I was going to blow them up and frame them anyway. ;-)
The party was a great success and Imp loved all of his gifts. And now I have two odd kids (11 and 13). I love these ages, they are just so much fun!
Between birthday planning, home-schooling, yard-work (I am in charge of picking up dog poop before the guys mow, so so lucky), and blog-writing; I was able to have some fun and make some new soap. This one is my own recipe, a coconut milk/activated carbon black-and-white beauty. I will show you the cut pieces and share my recipe in a future post.
I have so much homemade soap I have resorted to going to my neighbors and asking if they would take some off my hands.
I hope they don't think I am implying anything...
We also started a new fun project called "Cleaning up the Garage". We were able to get 50% of it cleaned by last trash day. It is always an adventure cleaning the garage because you never know what treasures you will find. I recovered 3 pairs of missing scissors, all of my wasp spray (I lose it and buy a new can and suddenly I have a store-worth), and Paul found a completely flattened mummified rat under a piece of wood. The boys were horrified by this as they have pet rats, but I always tell them when a wild rat gets in our house all bets are off. I have no idea how that rat got squished, but it was quite a find...
YUCK!
If you look carefully you can see the debris left by my boys. Extra fireworks left from New Year used periodically in driveway to frighten Mom. Check. Several broken kites pulled down from kite-eating trees. Check. Deflated yoga ball used as a giant bouncy seat in driveway. Check. Rip Stick. Check. Old rusty metal scooter. Check. Huge tangled ball of rope used to tie up sibling. Check. Water guns. Check. Beach pails covered in sand from times past. Check.
Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
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Happy birthday to Imp! Happy to hear it was a nice day for your guys. Ummm...we save our candles too. Is that a bad thing? I mean they get cleaned in soap and water. Why waste when there is at least half a perfectly good candle still!
ReplyDeleteGood luck with all the spring cleaning and I hope you don't find any more unexpected flattened creatures.
Lisa