He's Eleven

Yesterday was Alonzo's birthday. He is 11. How the heck did that happen? Surely he was only like 6 last year. Although there was no party I believe he had a great day. Dave was able to to take most of the day off, he had few things at work that couldn't be avoided, but was able to get back home quickly so he and Alonzo could hang out together.


We went to African Habitat gift shop where he picked out a a cool little statue of a woodpecker, then out to lunch for pizza. For dinner he requested Dad's special chicken nuggets, the ones that taste like Chick-Fil-A only better, and fresh green beans cooked so they taste like the canned ones. I am guessing I'm not the only one missing convenience foods. I make almost everything we eat here from scratch. My sister-in-law called to ask what kind of foods we were missing so she could stock the pantry for our visit and my answer was anything that comes in a cardboard box from the freezer section. Fish sticks and tator tots, Yummy!

Most of the day was spent playing video games. He played by himself, against dad, and with his bothers. This is a rare treat, I am usually the video game nazi queen. If the sun is shining no video games, if it is a school night no video games, if you are fighting with your brother no video games. To have all day access to the video games is a huge deal around here. The highlight of the day was finally beating a few of Dad's high scores on some of Wii fit Plus games. Dad's not worried, he says now he has something to do while we are in the states, reclaim his titles.


Of course no birthday is complete without cake and presents. Alonzo asked for a snake cake. If you do a google search for snake cakes you will come up with some very cool cakes, but I am in Africa and the confectioners sugar, or icing sugar as they call it here, is much coarser than the stuff in the states. It doesn't make great decorators frosting. It is always gritty no matter what I do. One of these days I am going to have to try making cooked buttercream where you whip hot boiled sugar syrup into eggs so I don't have to worry about finding or ordering decent confectioners sugar. It is supposed to be great stuff, but a birthday cake is no place for experimentation so I played it safe. I triple sifted the sugar and did the best I could. I opted out of a sculpted cake that I might otherwise try and stuck with a basic chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and used Wilton's decorator frosting to create a snake. The texture of the frosting was still gritty but the end product lived up to the expectations of a happy 11 year old.


After stuffing his face full of cake he finally got around to checking his e-mail where he got happy birthday messages from family and found an e-mail from dad.

Happy Birthday !!!!

They will be waiting for you at Uncle Danny’s house

Yep! Alonzo will soon be the newest member of the Cyberbones toe shoe club.

Wordless Wednesday - Happy 6th Birthday Grayson

Birthday Cake Woes

Dakota is having his birthday party today, at Hooters. I have expressed my disapproval, but he is eighteen, and already enlisted in the navy. He is a big boy now, at least that's how Dave put it when he backed up Cody's choice. And really, Hooters is fairly innocuous. His other choice was a beer bike. Thankfully David said "NO!" as loudly as I did. I think (hope) Cody was just trying to get a rise out of us. He knew there was no way we would say yes to that, even if the legal age to drink beer is 16 here. Anyway the party is all settled and my big problem is the cake.

You see, years ago, I made an X-rated birthday cake for my father-in-law and my brother -in-law whose birthdays were the same week. I will spare you the details. It did have a paper bikini made from cupcake liners, but once that was removed the cake was a real eyeful. Dakota has requested THAT cake for his birthday. Thing is, neither of the guys I made that cake for were my son. I just can't do it. So I made a beach babe cake. Even David said it was lame. Might as well have been a Barbie cake. So I "sexed" her up a bit. String bikini made out fruit roll-ups, purple jeweled belly button piercing, and I used a couple of red M&Ms to make her look "cold" under her bikini, if you know what I mean. The problem is fruit-roll ups have a certain, ummm....transparency issue. This cake is all set to win a wet t-shirt contest. Cody is happy, David is impressed, and I am just hoping I don't get a call from an irate parent when the party is over.

Click on the picture to make it larger.

Snakes, Sneakers, and Turning Seven

I think Colin's Birthday went well. We decided to forgo the monster parties we have thrown in the past. We sat down and talked about it with the kids and let them know we will do a party sometimes and sometimes we will just spend a special day with family. While there are lots of reasons for doing this, for us the big issue is it's hard to throw together a party when you have just moved to a new country. Who do you invite? Where do you get party supplies? It's not like I can grab the yellow pages and look it up. Something that was a pain to get together back in the states becomes completely overwhelming. Colin isn't feeling too bad though, most of his friends back home have had their parties cut way back as well, for a variety of reasons so he is in good company.

Instead of a party we took him shopping on Saturday to buy a new pet and shoes. Guess which one he liked better? If you were a seven year old boy which would you like better, new school shoes or a snake named Ribbon?




Sunday, on his actual birthday, we went for a family hike in Oberursel and found a prehistoric Celtic settlement site.  More accurately  we found signs pointing the way to a prehistoric site. We didn't actually make it all the way to the settlement this time. We had to pick up Cody from his leadership weekend and decided to arrive early for some hiking, but that put us on a time schedule so now we all have our fingers crossed for decent hiking weather next weekend.

When we arrived home I cooked the birthday dinner Colin requested: fish sticks, macaroni and cheese, and canned spinach. I think the menu may have been chosen less for what Colin likes and more for what Alonzo hates. Certainly Colin looked pleased with himself when Alonzo saw dinner laid out on the table. Poor Alonzo! Cake and ice cream made everything better.  Colin asked for a chocolate vanilla cake with chocolate dipped strawberries.  I tried my best.  Colin was a bit disappointed that a last minute request to change it to ribbon snake cake was not honored but these things take planning and I already had a pile of chocolate dipped strawberries.  

Happy Birthday Alonzo!

Friday was Alonzo's 8th birthday! WOW! He is getting really big! This year we didn't have the traditional overblown party but I don't think he missed it much. We started the day with breakfast at the American Club. The club makes amazingly good french toast and that is just what he ate, four huge slices.

After breakfast we went to a water park with a group from the embassy. It was just lucky happenstance that this was scheduled on his birthday, but when fate smiles I say go with it! We spent a pleasant afternoon floating on a lazy river, playing in the wave pool and racing down thrilling slides. If you are in Jakarta and looking for something to do with the kids on a hot afternoon Waterbom is the bomb! He even got a round of Happy Birthday and Pangjang Umurnya (Indonesian birthday song) from all the kids on the bus on the way home!

That evening David took the boys out for bowling and pizza with a few friends from the neighborhood while I hung out with Grayson who isn't quite old enough for bowling. David was pleased to discover he still has what it takes and bowled a 200, even though it has been years since he has had a chance to go bowling. Alonzo bowled a respectable 99, not bad for a beginner! Alonzo was very pleased with his score especially since Cody only bowled a 104 and he is sixteen.

We ended the day with carrot cake (from the American Club). We had the cake decorated with the Indonesian flag for our current post, and the German flag for our upcoming posting. We followed up with a movie and popcorn in the living room. He was one tired but happy kiddo!

Wordy Wednesday-SIXTEEN!

My baby is 16 today!  I don't know how that happened because I know I am not old enough to be the mother of a 16 year old boy. Or would that be man?  Hmmm...

If we were still living in the states Dakota would be getting his drivers license this week and our insurance rates would be going through the roof.  Thank goodness we live overseas!  He has to be 18 to drive in Germany, YIPEE!  Two more years of not worrying if he wrecked the car.

Of course he had always hoped that he would get a car for his 16th birthday and I wouldn't want him to be disappointed so he is getting a car cake!  Hope he likes it.  I thought the road kill candy was a nice touch!