The Burggraaf Blog: Mike's Birthday and Zach's Preschool Open House

Today Mike turned 33. To celebrate his birthday, I got up early and made him a German chocolate cake from scratch, frosting and all. Actually, when my alarm went off a little early this morning to mix up the cake batter and get it in the oven, I wondered why I thought making the whole thing from scratch was a better idea than just buying a box of cake mix and a jar of frosting at the store. But, it wasn't as difficult as I expected it to be.

The boys decided after lunch today that they wanted to paint some nice pictures for Dad for his birthday. Usually I strap Drew into his seat and give him finger paints, but today he really wanted a brush. I knew it was risky to give this kid a brush and paint and not have him strapped to a chair, but I did it, and it went very well. He got a little paint on me, but nothing major. It was nice to have a two-sided easel so both boys could paint at the same time.

Drew really loved painting like a big boy, and I think his first try at it yielded a lovely piece of art.

Zach decided he wanted to paint a rainbow, so that is what you see here, kind of on the side of the paper nearest to him. After this painting he painted 2 more, but both of those had snowmen shooting fire from their mouths, and I didn't get a picture of them.

Once Mike got home we gave him his birthday present, which is a framed print from the start of a Hawkeye game, where the male cheerleaders run out on the field with the I-O-W-A flags. It's a really neat print, but I considered getting him a different one, one of Kinnick Stadium early this season at the Michigan/Iowa game, which Mike was at. He liked the idea of having a print from a game he was at. It's for his office, so I don't care which one he gets.

Shortly before Mike got home I realized we didn't have any rice to go with our teriyaki pork tenderloin that was planned for dinner, and I just didn't want to have the meal without the rice. So, we had to quickly form a back-up plan, which was a little tricky considering it was 5:15 and Zach's preschool open house started at 6:30. We ended up going to Champs for a quick dinner (Drew's dinner was very quick, seeing as how he ate his mandarin oranges, about 2 bites of corn dog, and 2 bites of roast beef from my French Dip) before heading to the open house, and we got there around 6:50, so we did ok.

It was fun to see Zach's preschool classroom and for him to get a chance to show us around. His teachers are so wonderful, and he just loves preschool so much. Drew enjoyed checking out Zach's classroom, too, so everyone had a good time.

Here is Zach (in the middle) with his friends Caleb and Ben. These three seem to be pretty good buddies.

We got home from the open house in time to enjoy a little birthday cake before baths. Drew enjoyed the singing and candles, but didn't even want one taste of cake. Apparently his lack of appetite from dinner carried over to dessert. Could he really be my kid? Passing up chocolate cake? The rest of us enjoyed it a lot, though!