Almost Birthday Boy

We went to Richmond this weekend to celebrate Silly's upcoming 5th birthday. Cakes was dying to meet "Baby Layla" so I took her over to Clark and Whitney's house. Silly really wanted to come too, but it was already bedtime and I knew he'd just be a crazy loon if I took him over there.

Luckily Riza and Melissa were there with Riza's camera since I left mine at the in-laws. Cakes was in heaven, and Layla seemed perfectly happy. As soon as we left their house Cakes was already saying she wanted to hold her again. They are the only girl cousins on the east coast (the other girls are in Arizona, Washington and Albania!) and they are the only brunette girls. I supposed that could still change for Layla, but I doubt it.

 

Saturday I made Silly's birthday cake. The only thing he said he wanted was green frosting, and I saw this idea for a green monster cake at Target, so I went with it. Silly documented the decorating process.

 

He refused to let me give the monster more than two eyes (because he wanted to eat the other marshmallows). Then I tried to talk him into making it a strawberry monster (strawberries were his other birthday party request) by stuffing a strawberry or two into the monster's mouth just for fun, but he wouldn't go for that either.

His present opening commentary was hilarious as usual (the boy has no internal dialog, luckily its usually funny and not embarassing). He went all over the room to get his presents from behind the chairs and then into the middle of the room to open them. Carrying Mamie's present he said it was heavy, then the first thing he pulled out was a bag of Goldfish saltines and said, "Why would Goldfish be heavy?" but then he looked at what else was in the bag and saw cans of soup. I wondered why mom asked me what he likes to eat. He's always asking for soup.





Excuse the blurriness, my camera's battery was dying.

Clark pulled out his ever-present pocket knife when Silly couldn't get the tape off this bag. Silly said, "Why would Clark have a knife?" we all just laughed, because Clark always has a knife. And if my dad had been there he would have had one too. They're very handy people to have on hand for birthdays and Christmas.







He was thrilled to get more real tools. He'd had a sobbing meltdown at bedtime a few weeks ago over some of Scott's tools that we took away from him. Now they have some matching tools. Silly has barely let them out of his sight since his party.



He'd been waiting to get this space set for a long time. He gave the alien part to Bubba.





He opened clothes from Betty and Jerry, and immediately tossed them aside saying, "I said I didn't want clothes!" Which is what he says whenever he gets clothes for a gift. But apparently this fire truck shirt was something he's seen and liked when he was with Gummy and Grandaddy over spring break. Betty made Silly look at the shirt to see that it was the firetruck shirt he wanted and then he was happy with it.

Then it was time for cake. Those candles were supposed to be sparkler-like, but they weren't very sparkly and also very hard to blow out. Cakes had to offer some assistance. His other irthday food requests were strawberries and veggies he could dip in ranch. No problem.
He played quite happily for the rest of the day with his tools and his space shuttle.

Cakes got some more Layla time. Bubba was quite interested in touching Layla's feet and hair and he talked to her. When I asked him if he wanted to hold her he said yes, sat down, held her for less than two seconds then pushed her back at me. In spite of Bubba's snub, she liked him quite a bit too. She talked at him and tried to grab his shirt.

Silly held her for a few minutes too. He liked her much more than I expected him too. We're all so glad to have a new cousin!

His actual birthday was not very exciting, being smooshed together with Mother's Day as it happened this year. He didn't seem to care. Monday he took rice crispy treats into preschool to share with his class. I was with two other preschool moms today getting ready for their picnic tomorrow and they both said the first things their boys talked about at pick-up time Monday were the treats Silly brought and who got which kind.