happy birthday dude

time is flexible right?  so i can start writing and blogging about alex’s birthday which was three weeks ago, and because i haven’t blogged since it doesn’t look that bad. yes? yes.

every year a lot of thought and discussion goes into their birthday cake design. it’s one of those things that i love and hate. hate, perhaps, because my children never seem to want to stick to the women’s weekly cake decorating book cakes, and instead want satan’s fingers bursting out of a particularly appetising shade of grey cake or some other fabulously original thing i’ve got to figure out for myself.  love, because whatever they end up with it is a labour of love and there’s always a story.  like how i really can’t believe that alex thought he could just swipe icing from the side of the cake without anyone noticing the trail of fingerprints. (see photo above;)

and things like .. my mum gave me some cookie cutters in the shape of hands a few years back, and they went with some grudging thanks into the drawer-of-things-i’ll-never-use.  who the heck makes hand-shaped cookies?!

 

 

 

until alex’s birthday, with a quiet apology in the direction of her house, they came out again to make a load of co-ordinating cupcakes.  which is clearly what every 10year old head-banging’ kid needs for their birthday party.

anyway, after last year’s sleepover, which i was about to link but it seems i didn’t blog (that’s trauma right there, people) and the year’s sleepover before that which wasn’t so bad, this year I really wasn’t going for the sleepover birthday plan.  I was totally going for the let’s-pay someone-to-have-you-all-for-two-hours-plan and NO sleepovers.  So we discussed venues and got down to invitees, and he indicated that really, he only wanted four friends(his band), so maybe it’s wouldn’t be so bad having it at home.  I know that is is really kinda cool that he still wants to have them here at home (and i guess there’s not too many years of that left) so i agreed, and the all-night let’s-sleep-on-the-trampoline party idea was born. 

really?

nah not really. but frank hung the christmas lights around the trampoline and we had bedding and everything ready.  they did spend some time out there, but the story of the murderer-who-lives-next-door spread like wildfire.

 

 

so they decided they might sleep in the loungeroom after all.   and somewhere between 2.30am when i emerged and read them the riot act and 4.30 when frank found them all fast asleep, they went to sleep.

maccas pancakes for breakfast saved me an hour or so of slaving over a hot pancake pan.

one thing i’ve never got around to doing on the kids cakes are those trick candles which don’t go out when you blow, but i saw them in the party shop and thought that alex was just the perfect age to really appreciate them now.  the instructions on the candles say to let them burn for around 30seconds for best non-blowing-out results, so as the kids got distracted by something outside the front door, i took the opportunity to light them.  They get up a fair flame though, and when the boys didn’t return within a minute or so i started to worry.  Then i started to pace.  Then i tried to blow them out.. which, of course, hello!  they wouldn’t blow out! So i paced, i yelled out the front door for the kids to come back… i didn’t want to leave the cake unattended in case flames started leaping .. argh!  it was one of those moments i manage to have at some point in every party where i just wonder how i got into this mess.

eventually frank and another dad who had come to pick a child up appeared from somewhere, so i left them in charge of not letting the cake burn the house down while i went and found alex way around the corner and up the street and rowed him to hurry up (and have fun on his birthday) and come blow out the candles.

 

 

and the series of photos that followed was worth the house nearly burning down, to see his bemusement at these candles that wouldn’t blow out…   much of the time i was laughing too hard to take photos – those good, uncontrollable type belly laughs. 

 

the inside of the cake was red velvet, which i thought went well with the body part theme.  and it was yum.

 

 

 

and because you can never have enough of a good thing, the funny candles got a reprise at the family dinner.  it was just as funny the second time around and now mum wants some to play tricks on other unsuspecting 80year olds in her circle of friends.

and that was another birthday done for another year.  i’m so proud of the way this kid is growing up, i swear he has awesomeness oozing out of every overgrown hair on his head. i worried for a while that ‘cool’ was becoming too important, but he’s actually quietly self-confident and is starting to forge his own path.

 

with bed hair.

Comments

[Kelly Rodgers]

Oh - I want some of those candles. Awesome!
Happy Belated Birthday Alex xxx

[kathie]

Ahahaha! You did an awesome job with that cake! Your post made me laugh, because I bought some of those trick candles unwittingly a couple of years ago. For Jamie's third birthday I think. None of us knew that they didn't blow out. And that little guy kept blowing and blowing and blowing. Cruel! I posted a video of it on my blog I think. And you can hear me laughing in the background when I realise what's happened...
I'm glad that Alex had a great time.

[Louise Williams]

fabulous cake and love the candles. We did that one year and almost burnt the place down too, they get quite a flame and you don't wanna get an updraft!! lol

[Petrina McDonald]

hilarious!!! and I now vow to make sure my kids never see that cake or those cupcakes because they would seriously want theirs to have it showing "the finger" (because showing a bum would be rude, wouldn't it?)