Cake and Presents and Loud Singing, Oh My!

Drew's third birthday was this past Saturday. Unfortunately, it wasn't his best birthday yet, as he wasn't feeling great and therefore was pretty crabby and emotional. But it ended on a good note, so that was nice.

I always like a little walk down memory lane on my boys' birthdays.

Here is the first picture ever taken of Drew. He was my second induction, but by far the fastest labor and delivery. That was probably the first and last time Drew was easier than Zach...

Around 1 week old, and so sweet.

This was taken on his first birthday.

It's amazing to me how much I see his current face in this picture from 2 years ago.

Enjoying his first taste of cake.

This was last year with his Lightning McQueen cake. Yes, the obsession had already begun. I can't believe it's held on this long!

Showing off his new bike helmet last year.

This year Drew decided he wanted a Kermit cake. I was happy to not do Lightning McQueen again- that was a lot if work! The Kermit cake was somewhat easier. I just had to freehand Kermit's face and then fill it in with frosting. This year I just used canned frosting rather than homemade buttercream. The homemade stuff is fine, but it's a lot more work, and honestly, I prefer the taste of the canned stuff. I just had to add my own coloring. I mixed all my vanilla frosting with the green dye, though, and then realized I didn't save any white for the eyes! It was about 10:15 at night, so I just mixed up a tiny batch of white buttercream, and that worked very well. So here is the cake in progress.

And here's the final product. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It still took me probably at least an hour to frost, though.

As I said, Drew wasn't feeling great on Saturday. He was (and still is) coughing and sneezing a lot and blowing his nose about every other minute. I thought for sure he'd take a good nap, what with not feeling great. Wrong. It tool him a long time to fall asleep, and then when he woke up he was crabbier than before. We decided to let him pick what was for dinner, and though I was afraid he'd choose Kraft Mac & Cheese, he didn't. He first said he wanted ice cream. We told him that would be dessert with the cake. So then he decided he wanted pineapple. Just pineapple. So I went to the store to buy some ice cream, pineapple, kleenex with lotion, and some Leinenkugel's Berry Weiss, because it had just been one of those days (and one of those weeks; read previous post). Mike, Zach, and I were having frozen pizza, but Drew said he didn't like pizza and that he wanted fish sticks. Seems like a crazy birthday choice, but whatever. He ended up only eating one fish stick and a bunch of pineapple, and later he mostly ate ice cream and no cake, so I guess he got what he wanted after all!

After dinner Mike's two sets of parents came over to celebrate with us. Here he his with his cake.

We struggled to get a good smile for pictures. This was the best we had.

Drew warned us before everyone came over that we shouldn't sing too loudly to him, because apparently that morning, when Zach and I sang to him, we were too loud. (It was one of those mornings, as many mornings are with Drew.) Watch this whole video to see if we did a good job of meeting his demands.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Here's the whole group enjoying some cake and ice cream. (Mom and Dad- here's your picture of the new table. This is the best I've got.)

After cake and ice cream, Drew got to open his presents.

Mike and I struggled with what to get Drew, but we settled on this Lightning McQueen track. So far I'm not sure who likes it and plays with it more- Drew or Zach.

Throughout it all, Jake got in some good snuggling time with Grandpa Kevin.

It was a good ending to an otherwise somewhat tiring day. And most importantly, Drew went to bed a happy "free" year-old, as he would say.