In the wink of an eye, Mickey is going to be 9 years old and here I sit on photos from his 8th birthday. Previous birthdays always featured a meltdown supreme, but not so for his 8th birthday. Hallelujah! Because of the previous meltdowns, we decided to keep the festivities for this birthday close at home. Mickey invited a handful of friends over for playtime in the yard and homemade pizzas in front of the TV where they all watched "Rango". Funny movie.
Tom's job was to organize the party games. It being summer and hot, what better games to play than those with water balloons? They started with a free-for-all throw fest, then a back-to-back partner race trying not to drop or squish the water balloons, and then an all out shoot out with water guns and wicked squirter poles, or whatever they're called.
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My job was the food. Dinner started with homemade pizzas. I wish I could say that the ingredients came from my garden, but alas, that's not possible. The crusts were made from scratch, but the only thing on those pizzas from my garden was the basil, everything else game from Big Y's garden.
I must confess, however, that these pizzas
- one for each kid -
were the most successful homemade pizzas ever.
Every year Mick tells me what kind of cake he wants. This tradition started after I made him a carousel birthday cake for his 3rd birthday. The next year it was a monkey cake, then a shark cake, then a tiger cake, then an alligator cake. For each cake I made coordinating cupcakes. I can tell I'm getting old because I talked him out of wanting both this year. I suggested that we do really special cupcakes. His birthday present - Tipper, in the photo above - was the inspiration for the cupcakes below.
Mick wanted to open all the presents while all the kids were present, which we've done in the past, but this year we made him wait until all the party guests had gone home. Well, all but one. Lily, who visits her dad up the street every other weekend is one of Mickey's best friends, if not the best. She is one of those playmates that make me think of the kids in "To Kill A Mockingbird". Well, sort of. Neither Mickey or Lily are like Scout or Jim or Dill. It's their relationship and the fun times they have that is what's reminiscent of the kids in that movie. I think when they're grown, they're going to look back on all the weekends and summers they've spent together as deeply important and truly memorable.
It was a great birthday, so I'm thinking Tom and I have come up with a recipe for success.