The birthday breakdown

We seem to be over the birthday hump, at least for now. Further celebrations will ensue when my dad visits in the next two weeks and when we meet up with John's family at the cottage near the end of the month.

Emily had a great day. We went out for breakfast to Cora's. Hope was a nightmare so we didn't linger. From there we went to Brewer Park. Funnily enough, Nevan (Emily's closest friend) happened to be there with Jim (John's work wife). Emily had a great time - as she always does at the park. After that it was home for naps and serious cleaning and preparation for the party.

When I asked Emily if she would like to have someone over for her birthday, she predictably asked only for Nevan (and Pam, Jim and Celia, of course). She also asked for a Dora birthday cake. The Nevan part was easy enough but I was nervous about the cake. I'd never done a cake more complicated than some chocolate icing (often out of a can, because, yum) and some candles.

Turns out, I did great! I'm very proud of how it turned out and I can now see many more kids cakes in my future. I have to admit, it was pretty fun to do, even if the kitchen was a bit of a bakery disaster zone after it was done.

The kids had a great time. Emily was pretty wired during the whole thing but managed to get to bed on time. Unfortunately we had one of our worst nights ever that night. She was sick - with a cold it seems - and up a lot of the night. She ended up sleeping with me, waking me up every hour or so with her jimmy legs. Add to that Hope still getting up about 4 times a night and I was one seriously tired nasty bitch the next day.

But then. Then! Last night Hope only got up once! Once! It didn't escape us that she finally ate better yesterday with a big supper. I've got to figure out how to get her to eat better during the day so that it can translate to better nights. Right now she only wants food off our fork and from our plates. It makes planning suppers a lot more complicated.

More birthday photos can be found on Flickr. Oh wait. Flickr is demanding a Yahoo sign-in. Okay, now it can't find my original Flickr account. Trying again. Okay, now I'm pissed. I am officially done with Flickr and will find some other way to post photos. Stay tuned.

Update: I've moved over to Photobucket. The jury is still out on what I think but it is fully in on what I think of Flickr right now. Anyway, here is the link for the birthday photos.