Birthday Boy!

Master J is eleven today. That just sounds odd to me. It seems there's an extra digit on that number, that he cannot possibly be that old already. And yet, it's painfully obvious when I measure him on the pantry doorjamb and he is just under five feet tall. Certainly no one year old could be that tall. Somehow eleven years have sped by and we all got older. Sigh.

With every birthday that passes I get a little more of a hint of what my child will be like as an adult. Some of it's good, some of it's not so good. At least for today. Take for instance his stubbornness. As an adult being willing to stick with your convictions and not giving in to the general opinion is a great attribute. As an eleven year? Not so much. Now you're just being defiant (or so I've heard.) He still has a great sense of humor and makes me laugh daily. He's still an amazingly compassionate child who doesn't want anyone to suffer (except maybe his dad I suspect sometimes.) He's still got that spark that lets you know he's perpetually brewing something. And he's still an awesomely optimistic kid who's almost always happy. I adore him and I'm thoroughly enjoying watching him grow up.

We had a family birthday party on Sunday and, as is tradition, I got to make his cake. Master J has gotten into playing the video game Starcraft with Mister C in the last few months. And of course he wanted a cake that represented that new found love. It was a bit of a struggle to find anything in the game that would be easily transferable to cake form. So I headed to the Internet to see what others had come up with. There were some really neat ones out there, but they were beyond the scope of my ability. So I settled on reproducing a Nexus. I'll be honest, I still don't know what a Nexus is in the game but the cake I saw looked to be fairly reproduce-able so I went for it. For the one online, the guy had used fondant. I've never used fondant and with a party of ten showing up I decided I wasn't going to try something I've never done before. Maybe next time. I stuck with frosting and did my best. It wasn't exactly pretty, but I've always been a "taste over presentation" type of gal anyway so I didn't worry too much about perfection. It tasted awesome. It looked less so...



Then Master J insisted on taking a picture of the chef with his cake...



All in all it was a fun day spent with family.