Birthday Bonanza

Yesterday was Thing One's 5th birthday. I can barely believe that I have only known him for five short years. He is such a neat kid. I realize that any parent will say the same of their child...but make no mistake, he is one of the neatest people I know. He has this huge personality - so much so that when I was pregnant with Thing 2, I was sure that this poor baby was going to end up just sitting in a corner watching the world go by because Thing 1 has so much personality there was no chance there was any left for this new guy. It remains to be seen if that is the case...too soon to tell.
Anyhoo, back to my BigLove. He has an incredible sense of humor and impeccable timing. He is so loving. I cannot watch any sappy girlie movies around him without him asking me why I am crying. He will ask me if he gives me a hug will that make me stop crying. He is my funny, sensitive little prince. I am incredibly lucky to be his mommy.
There have been talks in the last few weeks about the birthday. What sorts of gifts would he like, what it was going to feel like to be five, etc. The culmination of all these talks was the cake. The flavor choice was immediate - chocolate and strawberry. The theme...Coyotes. He is a huge hockey fan. You name the city and this kid will tell you the name of the team...it's a little out of control and I am on the verge of being concerned. I struggled with his choice of theme. How the heck was I going to pull this off? I know that I have been dipping my toes in the creative pool as of late, but a Coyote's cake? Let's be serious!
I asked my friend for all the creative juju they could muster and I conjured up all the mother's love...and this is what we get:

 It could have been better, but at least it resembles the actual mascot, and truth be told it could have been a whole lot worse.  When Thing 1 woke up in the morning, I let him have a peek and he was dumb-founded, almost without words...which I don't think I need to say is quite rare!  He turned to me, mouth gaping wide and asked, "How did you even make that?"  In that moment all the flaws that I could see in that Coyote disappeared.  It was perfect in my BigLove's eyes and that was all that was really important.

After the peek at the cake, the boy and I ventured out for his birthday breakfast.  The Husband and I are new at this whole normal family business, so we
are making it up as we go along.  We are working on creating family traditions that work for us.  So we came up with Birthday Breakfast.  One parent will take the birthday having child to breakfast at the eatery of their choice.  Thing One opted for Denny's.

Pancakes were the choice for Thing One.  After he cleaned his plate, which rarely ever happens, he asked if he could have dessert.  Dessert?  I had never heard of Breakfast Dessert, but it was his birthday, so why the heck not?!

And this instantly made me the coolest mom on the planet...in my BigLove's eyes.  In that moment that was all that mattered.
Once we came home there were gifts to be opened before I had to take off (that will be in another post...a very long and potentially boring post).
He got some matchbox cars and a game...a very exciting game:

He was very excited to see yet another Star Wars game for the Wii.  This is number three.  He also got a special gun to go with another game that was opened in my absence.

After I returned home, we recieved a visit from Nana and Poppa and there were more gifts to be opened, dinner of his choice (pizza) and then we had our fancy cake with a side of ice cream.  The cake, aside from being nice to look, ended up being delicious.

My special guy had a great day and I will be forever grateful that he was born and ridiculously proud to be him mom!

I did it!

I did it!  I went site stalking and found some delightful decorating ideas and became a big ol' copycat!

 

I saw this great idea and the husband ended up having just the right amount of scraps in just about the right sizes.  Thing One was quite happy to help, and of course have his picture taken.

Then, I remembered having seen "House Rules" canvases on a number of sites, so I came up with this:

Mine is not near as polished and lovely as those that I had seen.  This was the first project I took on.  I fell short in a few areas (some papers were not so perfectly lined up and I don't think I did a great job hand painting the writing), but it was not an epic fail.  I tried and The Husband and Thing One think it's pretty fancy, so that counts for a lot in my book. I think that I will start cruising thrift stores in the coming week - just to get a feel of what is out there.

Feeling Creative

Well, actually - feeling like I wish I was creative.  My late nights have left me surfing the internet looking at all the amazing crafting blogs.  I wish so badly that I were capable of coming up with at least one amazing thing.  Instead, I have decided to "borrow" other people's creativity in the hopes that after enough stolen projects are completed I will spark the crafty section of my own brain and be able to contribute at least a tiny bit.

I have such an itch to go to Goodwill and see if something I see there "strikes" me.  I have seen so many amazing things in the wee hours of the night that I think I just may have a chance.  Should be an interesting trip with my babies.  I am sure that the 4 year old will find tons of things that he just has to have.

Wish me luck!!