Ninth Birthday, a year and half late . . .

Ok. I'm embarrassed. Here it is, a year and a half after Mickey's 9th birthday and I'm just now posting about it. I've been busy. Really busy. And today, I don't have to be in to work until 11:00, so as I sat in front of the computer with my coffee, I thought I'd take a look at my old blog to see where things were. I was taken back that I started this post a year and half ago but never finished it. So today, I'm finishing it. Given my poor memory, there won't be much story. I'm basically posting the photos so they won't be lost to all time once our computer crashes and we lose everything, which happens every year and half or so.

Having a birthday in the summer can be difficult. So many people are away on vacation. We used to invite the world for Mickey's birthday celebrations and turn them into grand summer barbecues. This used to be draining for the Tom and me, and the time came when it was clear it was draining for Mickey, too. So each year he pares down his list to the kids he'd like to have around and then we see who is around. For his ninth birthday, Mickey celebrated with Cooper (red cap), Roman (on the left) and Antonius (on the right).

I take charge of the food and cake and Tom takes charge of the kids and festivities. Tom comes up with all kinds of crazy things for the kids to do. I don't remember how this went, but first there was some sort of sock race.

And then there was some other race of some sort, and though it isn't depicted here, I think this race had to do with the socks, too. Or maybe it was all the same race. See. It's my memory. (Tom will probably see this post and then tell me these photos had nothing to do with a race or Mickey's birthday and these kids aren't really anyone we know.)

Once Tom got all the kids worn out with games, we settled down to eat. Though no pictures of the meal survived, I believed this year we decided to have a taco bar and let the kids fill their own. They also probably watched a movie while they ate, but that movie escapes my memory, too.

And for every birthday, this one included, Mickey has always had a special birthday cake made by yours truly. For his first birthday (his 3rd birthday), I made him a circus themed cake. Every year after, I let Mickey choose what kind of theme he would have. The subsequent themes were the monkey cake, the shark cake, the tiger cake (of which no photos were taken, dang it), then the alligator cake, and then last year he had Tipper cupcakes. This year he wanted a Spiderman cake. I always search the internet for ideas to steal, and after the multi-caked alligator cake, and the black icing and candy parts of the Tipper cupcakes, I was very glad to find this simple solution for a Spiderman cake.

And then after too much excitement, as usual, and a good bath, the sugar coma started to settle in and we could all relax.

Last year (or was it the year before?), our good friend and neighbor, Elise (my bff), took Mickey to have lobster at Greek restaurant in town. He looooooved the lobster - I actually think it was the pool of butter that he loved more - so I thought maybe we could have a new tradition of a family only lobster dinner for Mick's summer birthday. If you watch the lobster tank at Price Chopper, you can get lucky and find lobsters at a good price. I bought three and left them in their bag on the back seat of the car and told Mickey his birthday present was out in the car and he could go get it himself. I was sure he'd start screaming and be too freaked out to pick them up . . .