9 years old!

Alonzo turned 9 today.  It hardly seems possible.  Just yesterday he was a tiny baby.  This year we didn't do the party thing. David is out of town so he had to miss the fun today, but before he left had a special day with Alonzo to celebrate.  Alonzo was allowed to skip school, hang out with Dad, and go shopping for his present.  He chose a wooden chess set.  I think he chose well.

Today is his actual birthday.  To celebrate each of his brothers made him a gift.  
Grayson made him a set of juggling balls from balloons and lentils.  


Colin made him an archboard marble set.


Cody made him a button skeeball set.


I made him a cookbook with his very favorite recipe inside, waffles.  Now he can learn to make them for himself.


On top of his planned presents he received two more things.  New shoes,


and new glasses.


Both of were not so much presents as necessities since he manage to break both his glasses and his shoes this week and he still has two weeks of school left.

Oh, and one more thing.  What birthday would be complete without a cake?  He asked for a cake that was stacked like wedding cake,  carrot cake with chocolate chips and pecans.  This is what I came up with.


I flat refused to put chocolate chips in a carrot cake.  That's just gross! I put them on the frosting instead.  Speaking of frosting, what's with cream cheese frosting?  It never seems to work right for me.  Even though I ended up putting in a lot of extra sugar trying to make it stiffer, it still sort of oozed off the cake after a while.  It tasted OK though, and I guess that's what counts in the end.