Happy 4th Birthday, M!

M decided he wanted this pirate cake for his birthday. It looks easy enough, right? I should have read all the reviews before I started. I had the cake baked by 6 yesterday morning and was feeling good about the day to come. I started decorating the cake about 8:30 or so. By 10, I realized it was going to be a lost cause. I'd already lost 1 layer completely, another layer was in shambles, and the remaining 2 layers were crumbling before my eyes. The boys thought this shipwreck was great, because they got to eat cake twice in one day. L did try to talk me into setting it on fire, but I declined.

I thought for a few minutes about how to make a more stable cake, loaded the boys in the van and ran to the grocery store to get more cake mix and icing ingredients.

This is what I came up with. It's a bit tall (looked more like an ocean liner to me), but M was happy and the other boys liked it as well. I finished just in time to get everyone and everything cleaned up before Judo (ugh-much different than what I had planned for the day).

Four is a pretty big age around here. M had his first official Judo class yesterday and did pretty well. He's been begging, practicing, and watching for months and he was excited. At church, M will no longer be allowed in the nursery, so he'll have to sit quietly for the church service. And he moves from the 2 & 3 year old Sunday School class to the 4-1st grade class, which includes going to Wednesday night activities. He's very excited.

Here are the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. We celebrated M's birthday by going to McDonald's for dinner (his brothers tried to talk him into Chuck E. Cheese but Cr & I nixed that). We came home, had cake, and M opened his presents. He received a Thomas the Train bed set for his toddler bed, a Pirate Ship, a Leap Frog Word Launch game, a walking Dinosaur (although it's not Trample, it's a Spinosaurus or something), and a Bike-Just-His-Size. He's quite happy.