Party, or No Party...........that is the question!

I'm sure you've all been on pins and needles all day wondering whether or not Gage was well enough to go to school. He woke up this morning and said he was feeling good and ate a good breakfast so he went to school. He looked much better and he was definitely acting like he felt better! I didn't get any calls from school asking me to come and get him so the party went on as planned! I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo glad it's over with! All I have to say is thank goodness birthdays only come once a year! Whew!



Here is Gage's pirate ship cake. I started baking first thing this morning and I actually did get everything done in time and could have gone on the field trip with Gage and his class, but Scott asked me if he could go since he doesn't get to do those things very often. I decided there were plenty of things I could do at home to stay busy and get last minute things done. The cake was not too bad and didn't take me too long at all to decorate.

I cut off some of the cake at the front of the ship to angle it to a point and used those cake pieces to elevate the ship deck just a little bit. I thought it was pretty clever to use the guns on the sides of the ship to house the candles. It must have tasted pretty good because it was completely devoured and I didn't even get a piece!

I'm a little embarrassed to show the 2nd cake, but I'm going to anyway. I found the instructions online for this pirate hat cake and it was alot harder than it looked.

This cake was made from a round cake pan and then you cut a third of the cake off, then use that third, cut in half, for the sides, or brim of the hat. It was really hard to get the frosting on the cake while it was standing up like this, then trying to draw the white edging line was really hard at this angle too. The skull and cross bones look pretty bad and the nose I attempted to create accidentally got filled in with the gel. This is certainly not my best piece of work, but it must have been pretty tasty, because the kids were coming back for seconds. This was the milk-free cake that I made so Matthew could have some, since he is allergic to milk.

Happy 8th Birthday Gage! We love you!

I always try to get a picture of Gage and me holding the cake. I want him to remember when he looks back in his scrapbook all of the hard work I put in all of these years making birthday cakes! I remember about 17 years ago, when I was still in high school, my sister Jari Jo took a cake class and made the most awesome cakes for her kids' birthday parties. I told myself then that I wanted to do that for my kids too!! Thanks for the inspiration sis! :-)

Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday dear Gage. Happy Birthday to you! May all your wishes come true!

This was way toooooooooooooo many kids! It's also not a good idea to get them right after a long day of school, on a Friday. They were wild and loud! And this is minus 2 people because Gage forgot to give out all of the invitations! Apparently they slid underneath something at school and he didn't know it until yesterday. When I went to the school to pick him up after he got sick, the teacher handed me 3 of his birthday invitations. UGH! I thought to myself, "Well, I guess I won't have to call those parents if the party ends up being cancelled!" There were actually 3 invitations that didn't get handed out, but we were able to get one of those 3 kids to come home with us because I was able to ask his Mom on our way home if he could join us.

Gage was very excited about all of the gifts he got. He got a few gift cards which he LOVED! I kind of like the idea of gift cards too. It helped decrease the number of toys he got AND he's saving his money up for a huge Lego set so he is able to add those gift cards to his stash. One of the first gifts Gage opened up was a DVD, which he already had. Gage said, "Thanks, but I have that already!" I felt terrible. I forgot to tell him beforehand to be sure and not say things like that because it makes the kid who got them that gift feel bad. He didn't really say it rude, but he was blunt. Matthew's parents must have asked about what Gage thought of his gift because while we were out for supper tonight we came back home to a message from Matthew telling Gage he had the gift receipt for his DVD and he would bring it by tomorrow. I guess he knows now not to do that the next time.

I sure missed having your help this year Emily (and Jody)!! Kara offered to help but I told her I thought we were good. It's nice having that extra pair of hands around that is thinking the same thing you're thinking, if you know what I mean? When I was cutting the cake, I asked Scott to go in the house to get me a second knife because I figured I shouldn't cut the milk-free cake with the knife I used to cut the non-milk-free cake. I don't know how bad Matthew's milk allergy is and I sure didn't want to be the cause of an allergic reaction. When I asked Scott for the knife when he got back outside, he said, "It's right there on the table." He brought me a fillet knife. Uh, thanks Scott, but I'm not cleaning fish here! He says, "Well, you didn't tell me what kind of knife to bring!" I wouldn't have had to tell Emily OR Kara what kind of knife to bring me. I told him a butter knife was more along the lines of what I was thinking!

The weather was beautiful which allowed us to spend nearly the entire time outside. That's always a good thing and I was especially thankful after 3-4 cups of juice and milk were spilled on the patio floor!

I'm so thankful the party is over! Thanks for all of your prayers. I know that's what helped Gage get to feeling better which allowed us to have the party today and not next week when it is supposed to be cold and rainy! I'm also thankful that I have 4 months to recuperate before Emma's next birthday!