So what? Sew buttons!

Sunday was Clark’s 4th birthday.  I can’t believe what a big boy he is-it’s almost hard to remember what it was like before he is the way he is now.  We had a nice party for him and, unlike last year, the weather was absolutely perfect.  A hot sunny day.  Happily, I felt very relaxed about the whole thing.  It was just a really enjoyable weekend getting ready for his special day, seeing him so happy and excited, and celebrating with friends and family.  Paul has written a guest post about it! The only thing I will add is that the menu was:

Hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken strips on skewers grilled

Black bean, corn, mango salad

Macaroni and Cheese (the awesome Everyday Food recipe)

A salad comprised of Israeli cous cous, feta, basil and parsley, yellow and green zucchini, tomato, white wine vinegar and olive oil.

Three Bean Salad – which I’ve never made before and think it came out fantastic. I loved it.  I’m crazy for those sugary-vinegary dressings.  I used fresh green beans, which I blanched, red kidney beans, and chick peas.

Having thrown four birthday barbecues I feel like I’m getting quite good at coming up with different side salads every year!

Here’s Paul’s take on the day:

Sunday was Clark’s 4th birthday!  Sarah pulled out all the stops with ideas, cooking and general theme-ness.  We usually do a vague theme, as we don’t want to go too over-the-top with whatever the idea is.  In this case, four-years-old equals dinosaurs.  But I’m delighted to say we didn’t turn our house into Jurassic Park or anything crazy like that, just a nice balloon, a cool cake and the soon-to-be-mentioned games.  Oh, and since Clark’s favorite color is purple, we liberally sprinkled purple bits around the yard.

Sarah joked about the brazenness of 4 year olds, as quite a few children tried to unveil our first game before it was officially ready to begin.  (We’re not sticklers for too many things, but you’ll soon see why timing was important.]  Our first game was a dinosaur dig.  About two years ago I built Clark a 5 foot by 5 foot sandbox.  The day before his party we filled it with 1000 pounds of sand (I know because I hefted all twenty of the 50 pound bags into the box).  We then stuffed about 50 small plastic dinosaurs into the sand.  We then made a zen pattern in the sand with a rake, write Clark’s name and covered it up (evidently foxes like using sand as a litter box).

When we unveiled the game, the kids (about ten in all) were tentative, slowly reaching their hands in.  But after several dinos were uncovered (and we surreptitiously added more (it’s actually not that hard to fool 4 year olds)) the kids all piled in and had a blast.  Pretty soon there were construction vehicles uncovering dinos and sand being flung about.  And, I also got to hear a lot of the parents’ muttered approval of what a great idea it was,

An even bigger highlight, and one that almost didn’t come off at all, happened shortly  thereafter.  Sarah had ordered a dinosaur pinata from some online shop.  I don’t know the name, but she can say right here what the company was and how displeased she was with them, as the pinata did not arrive on time.  So, thank you Party City for having a T-Rex balloon and a T-Rex pinata.  I didn’t really know if a pinata was such a good idea, as ten 4 year olds wielding sticks seemed like it might get hairy.  Well, they loved it.  And they were all quite well behaved.  Each one took a turn and not a single one did any damage to the dino.  We didn;t even have to blindfold or spin them.  But they enjoyed whacking that thing.  And it was very cute seeing the little kids (a couple of two year olds) wielding sticks and gently tapping the dino.  Eventually Sarah had to step in.  I played a cruel trick on her (which I’ll let her describe).[Sarah: This would be the classic thing where I swung at it just as Paul yanked the rope up and made the pinata fly up and out of reach. Very funny!]  And we then learned just how tough the pinata was.  First, she broke a fairly large stick in half on it, and then she broken her mother’s cane (okay it’s a collapsible cane, but it made a spectacular photo!).

When the dino went flying, so did the kids!  Candy was snatched up and consumed…we didn’t even need goodie bags with all the stuff the kids got to take home.[Sarah: though, of course, there were goody bags. And I was crafty and painted dinosaur shapes fanciful colors and hot glued magnets to the back and added those to the bags.]

I also went into our chicken coop and brought Mrs Hen (I think) out for the kids to pet.  It was about 50/50 with those who wanted to and those who didn’t (parents included). Mrs Hen didn’t seem all that thrilled by it either frankly.

Then came cake and cupcakes.  Sarah made a cute dinosaur (which I got to do the black piping on) and it was delicious. With the cupcakes, there was purple frosting everywhere! Yum!

And then we all crashed.

Clark did quite well with presents.  But nothing could compare to his very first present of the morning.  His first two-wheeler!  He was so excited.  And after about 20 minutes he was riding like a pro.  (okay, there were training wheels).  We didn’t think ahead that a new bike would mean he’d want to ride it ALL THE TIME, so Sarah has already been to the park once, with plans to do some more ASAP.

It was quite a delightful birthday party.  We feel that everyone left rather satisfied.

Our darling Tabitha turned one yesterday. One! No longer a wee baby. I’d say I just can’t believe it but the fact is it is almost hard to remember what it was like before she was here. It seems she’s always been a part of our lives.  She is such a sweet good natured baby and we just love her so so much.  To celebrate we had a small birthday brunch.  Brunch is a favorite meal that seems to happen infrequently, plus it goes well with in between her nap times.  The menu: sausage jalapeno bread pudding, cinnamon filled scones, cranberry orange muffins, sausage & bacon, and broccoli-cheddar quiche.

The cake : I used a recipe that I’ve used for other birthday cakes. It’s a tad semi-homemade, but super delicious and has a really great texture.  It involves a cake mix plus cream cheese.  The frosting was a strawberry cream cheese frosting. Because the sides of my cake looked so good I decided to only frost the top.  THe decorations were flowers growing up the sides of the cake to the top. Sweet and just right for a little girl. The birthday girl enjoyed it and also wore her birthday crown, which I made a felt and sequins.

And here she is on her real birthday, yesterday: