No Bones About It

We have an every-other-year-party rule at our house. Birthday's rotate between friend parties and family activities. This year was a family activity year, and the Little Guy chose to go to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. He prepared a fish fossil, which is now being displayed on his bookshelf with about a dozen other "favorite" knick-knacks he keeps close by. The dinosaur museum is really big and he and the Pip-squeak had a lot of fun playing through all the exhibits. I must have read 100 plaques! So a big thanks to the thoughtful palentologists who put phonetic spellings next to the real names enabling me to sound like I knew what I was talking about!
One of their favorite things to do at the Dino Museum is to play in the sand in the Quarry room. It took a lot of persuasion to get the Pip-squeak out. The Little Guy loves the idea of discovery new things. He goes on expeditions around our house and loved uncovering the bones in the sand with his paint brush tool.


Even though we didn't have a "friend party" I thought we should stick with a theme so I attempted to make a dinosaur fossil cake. It's covered with crushed vanilla wafers, and I shaped the bones out of gum paste. Gum paste is edible, but not tasty. I should have used chocolate instead, oh well. The hardest part was writing Happy Birthday. Frosting does not like to stick to crushed vanilla cookies! It took almost as long to write "Happy Birthday" as it did to frost the whole cake. And my handwriting is still awful!


I love that I got a pic in the blowing-out process. It takes a nice, big breath to blow out six candles, but the Little Guy did it in one go. Ironically he didn't even eat the cake. He scraped off the frosting and ate that with his ice cream. I seem to remember doing the same kind of thing when I was little!

He had a pretty pile of presents and cash when the day was through. We brought him to the toy store to spend the birthday cash and he was able to get more Bakugan (the biggest thing since Bionicles at our house), another light saber, and some Star Wars Legos. Thanks to everyone who remember his birthday! He got a phone call from his Uncle Grey, and although he didn't say much of anything on the phone he talked me through the entire conversation afterward, twice. His Aunt Alice sent him a birthday card from Germany where she is currently serving a mission. He loved getting a handful of cards in the mail. And saving the best for last, he got to spend the night with his Grandma Debbie and Papa George, which he had been looking forward to all week!

At the end of the night he told me he had one of his best birthdays ever. My heart fluttered and I thought about that day six years ago when I held him in my arms for the first time. He was so little and helpless and I was completely terrified that I was going to screw him up. I can only attribute his sweet spirit to the angels that are watching over him, because heaven knows I still need some help.