Sam's birthday started out with Grandma Mum's tradition of chocolate iced donuts, with sprinkles and balloons being delivered in time for breakfast. This tradition is something the children always, always look forward too!
Knowing we'd have a 5 day old baby at home on his birthday, we've had lots and lots of conversations about what he wanted to do to celebrate. Typically the fifth birthday is celebrated at home with just our family, but last year his birthday fell on a Sunday, and we didn't do a friends birthday party, and so we decided to allow a small "low key" friends birthday party this year, which we'll do next weekend.
So tonight we celebrated as a family. Sam requested pancakes for dinner. GR asked if he wanted to go to IHOP for pancakes, and he said no, he wanted Grandma Mutti to make them because she makes the best pancakes. So we pulled out all the stops and made a full course breakfast for his birthday dinner again this year.
Sam also requested a red ice cream cake. So we made our first red velvet cake (not so hard now that Duncan Hines has a red velvet cake mix I could easily doctor up), cut the 10" cake in half to make 2 layers, added a thick layer of vanilla ice cream, and then covered the whole thing in a simple icing of powdered sugar, cream cheese and cool whip. It turned out perfectly!
ETA: He's really excited about all his gifts and has gone non-stop since Tuesday night making the rounds with each and every gift he's opened. Mom made the comment that everyone nailed their gifts so perfectly this year that we'll be hard pressed to live up to it again next year. That's the great thing we're learning about boys at this age ... you simply can't go wrong with anything that winds up, shoots, flies, or has a remote control - and that pretty much sums up everything he got this year.
We have just about a week and half before we repeat this all over again with Alex ... and given how he's taken to following Sam around wanting to do exactly what Sam's doing with each of his gifts, he'd be extremely happy if we really did repeat Sam's birthday.
I realized while in the hospital that I forgot to put a little "on vacation" slowdown message on my Etsy shop ... after a second of "what if I get a sale" panic, I calmed myself down with a reminder that the likelihood of that was very, very, very slim.
Today I decided to check things out on Etsy, looked over my shop, added my vacation announcement for August, and discovered this. A very sweet spotlight of my shop on the EtsyKids Blog. I immediately emailed Stacey at Daisy Designs, the gal who wrote it, thanking her and apologizing for just noticing the write up. Explaining that Anna had come just a few days before. She replied with this message "It was a really easy choice on who to spotlight. :) I have always admired how you welcome shops to the EtsyKids forum."
I'm not a huge presence on EtsyKids, I guess you could say I'm pretty low profile, and on many occasions I've felt like no one knows who I am ... I promote and promote and promote others, and I would periodically look through the forums and welcome new shops (especially those without any comments yet), but because the group is so huge, I have asked myself many times if it was worth the time and effort. Anyway, it was sweet to know that this isn't entirely true. And the exposure is defiantly nice to have!! She also asked for our address so she could send Anna a little gift. What an incredibly sweet and generous offer. She has a three year old girl, I'm thinking I'll need to return the favor with a cute girlie pillowcase.
We aren't short of any holders in this family. GR said Sunday during primary Rebecca announced to the entire room that she and Emily "hadn't been allowed to hold Anna yet, but that Sam had (see yesterday's picture)." Apparently more than one person took her at her word and gave him quite a friendly ribbing for it after church ... what is it that we're all told when our children enter Kindergarten ... the teachers all promise not to believe everything our children say, if we promise to do the same... :)
Here is pictorial proof that Anna and her older siblings are taking lots and lots of opportunities to passed our sweet bundle back and forth along the couch from one set of arms to another. Anna loves it. She was a bit of a flincher and was very easily startled in the hospital, but here at home, she is perfectly content with all the familiar sounds of our active, mildly chaotic, rarely quiet home ...
Taken just before the kiddos headed off to church with Grandma and Grandpa.
