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Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The day after birthday ramblings...

I love mornings like today.  The sun is shining, the air is crisp, the window's are open and I can hear the birds and bees going about their day!  I love it when the kids get off to school and its all quiet in the house.  I can blast my favorite music as I go about my morning and sing at the top of my lungs.  Its the best :)  
OK, what's wrong with this cake?  Darth Vader defending a graveyard?  Daddy trying to take a bite before the candle is even blown out?  He He!
Eli had a great birthday!  I am so happy it's all over to be honest!  Birthdays no matter how mellow they are, still require a lot of work.  You want to make the day special for your child or loved one and sometimes we get carried away.  I try and keep things simple knowing that the birthday child/adult really just wants my full attention rather than the perfect cake, presents etc.  But, then I want to make it special so I go a bit overboard and get all frazzled in the end.  Oh well, someday I will take my own advice :) I let Zoe take charge of decorating the above cake, and she did an amazing job, even though the gel frosting started to droop away (entirely not her fault, as it was very humid yesterday).   Since Eli has a birthday in October he always wants a Halloween themed cake and treats for school.  Below are the treat bags he brought to school to celebrate with his class (see Halloween theme?).  
I kept his birthday celebration simple as I have each year in the past.  I was originally going to have a big party and invite all of his friends.  I called around to some of the "favorite" party places and told them my dates etc.  Most were booked a month or more out already and Eli's list was getting bigger and bigger and the party cost was going up and up.  I thought this whole birthday celebration was then getting out of hand.  I mean, where was this mama that wanted to create simple parties for her kids?  I realized then I was getting caught up in the "competing with the Joneses'" and I did not want to go there.  I asked Eli at that point, what he really wanted, did he really want a big party where he would honestly pay attention to 1 or 2 of the kids out of the 15 he invited (I didn't really ask him this exact question) or did he want to have his first sleepover with his best buddy, who he has known since he was 11 months old.  He looked at me, remembering the birthday party he attended recently where he was ignored for the most because his friend had other guests there that he was excited to see (I mean this is what kids at this age do, they can only focus on 1 or 2 kids, they are not skilled in the ways of hostessing like us adults) and said, I want my best bud here for a sleepover.  That is what we did, and he will always remember that night.  It meant more to him than some big party at some random place.  He got to choose the restaurant for dinner that night, he chose CPK because that is truly his favorite place, got to plan the board games he wanted to play, and got to pick out the sugar cereal of his choice for breakfast the next day.  A note on this, Eli always begs to get those sugar cereals when we go to the grocery store, you know the ones I am talking about, lucky charms, fruit loops etc.  I told him a couple of year's back that he could choose any box of sugar cereal for his birthday each year.  Well, he chose frosted flakes the past two years, which I thought wasn't too bad.  This year he chose this:
That is one happy kid, wouldn't you agree?  

He loved it and still loves it as his afternoon snack.  His actual birthday was pretty simple.  We went to our family's favorite restaurant, DJ's.  They love Eli and Zoe so much as we have been going there weekly for the past 14 years.  This is our kitchen away from home and the owners are really like family to us.  We sometimes kid that we will have Zoe's rehearsal dinner there.   They put up the special "Happy Birthday" sign.
Dad and Eli at DJ's

Zoe and Eli pouring on the love!


We had dinner and then went home for cake and presents!  At the end of the day, Eli said, "I am exhausted, but I had the best day ever, thanks mom, dad and Zoe for making my birthday the best, I really love you guys."  

That is what we all want to hear at the end of the day, right?


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