Birthday Party, Pictures, and More

Elijah's birthday party was on the 8th. It went pretty well, all things considered. I'm not really the best at being in charge of events. But the party got pulled together and the kids (and even the adults) seemed to have a good time. I ordered the decorations from a website and our local grocery store was able to draw an approximation of one of the cartoon characters from his decorations on his birthday cake. There were bubbles for the little guests to play with outside, there were snacks and drinks. The grown ups got to sit on the couch and chat. The cake was delicious. It had fresh strawberries and Bavarian cream in the middle. (I'd asked for bananas, but I'm not complaining. It was tasty.)

I made a Banana Split Brownie Pizza (Pampered Chef recipe) and that was a real hit. Almost as much as the helium-filled balloons were with the kids.

It was all so hectic, and I'm so unused to being in charge of things, that I completely forgot to serve the cheese/meat/cracker tray I bought and the homemade ice cream I'd been working on all that week. So some of our guests who stayed to help clean up got to take home a couple cartons of Natalie's Signature mint chocolate ice cream. I'm stuck with a bunch of crackers pepperonis, salamis, and cheese.

As you can see in the picture above of the cake there is a significant amount of blue frosting. It was very cute as decoration, and made for some really cute pictures like this one:

But we soon realized that the blue was not so easy to get off of the skin. Really, when you order a cake from a bakery shouldn't they courteously ask, "Would you prefer the dying or the non-dying frosting?" I seriously thought Elijah was going to look like a smurf for a week! And he was supposed to have his first year portraits taken the next day!

Fortunately most of the blue came out in the bath. And the rest seemed to rub off easily as he played. One of our guests gave me a call a couple days later and asked if it all had come out, her daughters hands were still blue.

As luck would have it, the day after his party was so windy we had to reschedule his portrait session. Around these parts the wind isn't blocked by trees or hills, it just runs free carrying anything and everything with it; bushes, lawn furniture, small dogs... So when it looked like I was about to see Dorothy Gale or the Wicked Witch sailing past my window I wasn't surprised to get an email from the photographer asking if I would rather hold off on our outdoor session for less inclement weather.

Elijah was supposed to have his one year doctor's appointment yesterday. But yesterday was significantly less windy and it seemed like the only time in the near future that we could reschedule his photo shoot. Normally I would never back out of a doctor's appointment here on base. If you do you aren't likely to get a new appointment anywhere near the date of your original. But the timing was just too close and I didn't want him feeling all grouchy from his shots while trying to get a smile out of him.

The photo shoot went pretty well. The photographer, Shannon Velloza, Shannon's Website went with me out to the park and we got a lot of pictures of Elijah among the rocks and wild desert foliage. Her husband is deployed, too, so she brought her kids along. They all kind of went wild among the boulders, about giving their mom a heart attack when they climbed up to the tops of the rocks. I just chuckled to myself, knowing that if they were our kids and my husband were here he'd be egging them on.

Now I know some of you are wondering about how Elijah is doing in the walking department. Well, he isn't walking on his own yet. He still prefers "four wheel drive" so to speak. But I will get a video of him taking a few steps if/when I can.

Alice is progressing in her potty training. We had a minor setback when she got spayed cut open. She was so loopy from the meds, I think, that she couldn't make it up to the toilet so she went in her bed. It was just once but I'm taking it slow just in case. Still, I think that in a couple weeks we'll be done and I can post a pic of our dear little Alice using the toilet!

I still have not shipped out the extremely large popcorn popper. I'm hosting a movie night at our place this Friday so we can "make sure it works" before I send it. Also, we get paid again this Friday and I'm sure I'll need the extra funds to actually get the machine over there. It's really big and quite heavy. Not to mention that for the movie night I needed to buy a TV and a Blu-Ray player. The TV is a surprise to my husband and I'm hoping he won't find out about it until he gets home. So, please, everyone try to keep it hush hush. I got a 46" Sony Bravia LED LCD TV. It's very thin, fairly large, and has excellent resolution. A friend came and helped me mount it on the wall last night. When it was done, even though it was a little late, I couldn't help but put in Avatar on Blu-Ray just to see how it looked. It was AWESOME! I think Bryan will be thoroughly impressed when he sees it.