birthday boys

 herschel turned 4 on february 4th and reagan turned 14 on march 16th! 

just a quick recap, i made an ugly cake for herschel. he was quick to let me know it was a thumbs down. i have to agree. thumbs down for effort but thumbs up for effort. the bottom was a brownie layer and the top was cake with a buttercream frosting all over. the next day when it was all falling apart and had sat in the fridge all night, it tasted perfect. secrets revealed, everything tastes better the next day. except spaghetti noodles. just toss the old ones and make a fresh batch.

 i told hersch that we would plan an actual friends party, but time got away from me so we had one little friend over for dinner on sunday and he was appeased with that friend party.

 customary breakfast present opening.

herschel is really into transformers right now so he got a bunch of those. it only took me a solid weekend to master changing them back and forth from trucks and cars into "wobots". the best day came a few weeks later when herschel himself learned how to transform those tricky little rascals. 4th child learns his fine motor skills through daily survival of older siblings and despite old, tired, borderline educationally neglectful parents. hersch also received a tyrannosaurus rex backpack. since a t-rex's arms are pretty much useless, it's apropos that this little bag is pretty useless too as it will only accommodate three or four hot wheels cars.  

loving a 4 year old is like running in the wind. happy 4 year old and the wind is at your back and you're loving life. grumpy 4 year old is like running into the wind and that's the only way home. you can do it, but pretty soon everyone is crying. those are my deep thoughts of the day.

 on hersch's actual day of birth, i took all the kids to the park after school and we ate chik-fil-a. the wind was at my back. 

for reagan's birthday more than a month later, we had a "sunday dinner party" at reagan's request. he was very specific about menu and guests and the date. not on the actual day or even the same week. he made sure to invite families that had kids that athena blythe and hersch and scarlett could hang out with too. thoughtfulness is not something i expected from this teenager.

he wanted a chocolate mickey mouse cake. i made the vanilla for funsies and then a bunch of blondies. the blondies were the big hit. next time i'll just make tray and trays of those. i spent all day saturday getting ready which included making 5 pans of baked ziti and all the meatballs that costco had in stock. i must love reagan because i am still tired just thinking about it. 

i'm always humbled by all the people who show up to support reagan. final count was 35 people. most were wearing green.

and then a lone clemson fan came just to taunt me. but you can't affect me like that. i am titanium. alabama is down but not out. 

still not able to grow grass this year either thanks for the copious amounts of rain washing our backyard away.

 costco had alllllll sizes of adidas three stripe pants in stock this week so everyone now has a pair. we wore them in honor of reagan. he's right. let's just wear comfortable things! reagan's tie and sweats combo just proclaims, "it's a party but i also plan on eating cake".

just in case this is as good as it gets, expect this same picture in december with the caption:

 merry christmas from the simpsons!