After much deliberation and soul-searching, Edward finally settled on chocolate cake for his birthday. With Lightning and Mater. Yes, around and around we went with varieties of cake and pies, until we ended up in exactly the same place as last year. Oh well, at least I already knew how to do it. Apparently though, I don't know how to read the expiration date on a cake mix because the first cake of the day did not grow to more than about half an inch thick. I briefly considered just frosting it and moving on, but couldn't bring myself to do it. The only other cake mix in the house was white cake, so to the cookbooks I went to find a recipe for which I had all the ingredients. A quick reminder of how to make a substitute for buttermilk (regular milk with a Tbsp of lemon juice), and we were back in business. (The non-rising cake went into the freezer for use on a less festive, but still dessert-worthy occasion.) John's best comment of the day after learning of my cake plans: "You can DO that????" As in, make a cake without a mix. Yes, this is the level of our culinary expectations.The next crisis came when I discovered that the number 5 candle had somehow broken in half inside the package. ARRGH! I was about to head out to Walgreens, which remained open 24 hours through the holiday, when John hit upon the idea of using the wax from a regular birthday candle to melt the two pieces together. It worked! At least long enough to light and blow out, which was all that was required.
Edward's other birthday meal request was for pizza--like father, like son. (It's on Daniel's self-selected menu as well.) I offered home made but he said, "No I want the pizza guy to bring it." Well, Edward, sorry. No delivery on Christmas. So instead, we went to a local family-owned pizza place that preps and freezes pizzas to bake at home. Worked pretty well, though it did result in the third smoke detector blaring of the day. (Recall the overflowing monkey bread from earlier in the day. Hard as we tried, we couldn't get all that sugar off the bottom of the oven. Really smokes up when the oven is at 450 for pizza!)
But aside from my kitchen foibles, I think it was an all around good birthday. Here is Edward in the Christmas gift knight costume opening knight Legos from his Wisconsin cousins.
And here he is with the castle gift from Grandma and Grandpa (with 130 PIECES!)
We did manage to get it put together, but it took all four adults!
This should be good for hours of indoor winter fun until it's warm enough to hit the sidewalks with this gift from Mom and Dad:
He's tooled around inside a bit but you can't get up much momentum from one side of the living room to the other.The day after Christmas we took advantage of the Christmas Eve snowfall and went sledding at our local elementary school.
The boys had a blast, and John and I took a few turns down the hill as well. We steered clear of the "jump" some intrepid sledders before us had fashioned, but the kids thought it was fabulous. In the video below you'll hear Edward's "Oh, man!" when he misses it, and Daniel's giggles as it causes his sled to flip time and again.John thinks this action shot is worthy of Sports Illustrated.
Next up, New Year's weekend in Evanston. More stories for another day.
