Celebrating Tommy's Two

Mondays are jam-packed with soccer, work, school and all other kinds of celebration interfering busyness, so we decided to celebrate Tommy's second birthday a day early.  Today!

Saturday night Adam and I diligently baked cupcakes, made a batch of buttercream frosting and kneaded marshmallow fondant to roll out to make the decorations for these awesome "build your own robot" cupcakes.  I found the idea for them here.  Adam is the most awesome sous chef a girl could ask for!  And the cupcakes?  I ADORE them!  It was my first time working with fondant, mostly because I think it always looks really pretty but tastes like/has the consistency of old ABC gum that still has its bubble gum sugary sweetness, but has developed a weird over-chewed texture that eventually disintegrates in your mouth.  Yes, I know about the gum from experience, I was one of those kids that would put my gum on a piece of paper at the end of the day before brushing my teeth and then pick it up, pop it in my mouth to chew it again in the morning.  Gross.

My feelings about the consistency and flavor of fondant aside (and I know plenty of people who really like it, so this is obviously a personal issue), it is fantastic for making cute and detailed cake decorations, so I gave it a shot.  You don't have to actually eat it anyway; I can easily pull that robot body part right off the top of the buttercream frosting and get to the good stuff below.  Although I may just have to eat it on principle considering the time involved in cutting out all those tiny robot parts!  It got pretty tedious.  When we hit hour 2 of  making the cupcakes, I said to Adam, "This is taking forever!  Why can't I just put on some sprinkles and call it good???!!"  It wasn't just the cutting that took time, the fondant was time consuming to knead and knead and knead just to make the color consistent.  But when the cupcakes were done, we gave each other a high five and I exclaimed, "Those were SO worth the effort!"  They are DARLING!! 

Enough about the cupcakes!  On to my sweet Tommy's birthday celebration day!  We started the day with some pumpkin pancakes topped with homemade buttermilk syrup.  Oh boy, were they good!  Tommy is still not feeling 100% and his appetite is down, but he got about half a pancake down before he was all done.  Sadly, he has no special plate yet!  I forgot that he didn't have one and haven't made one yet.  It's actually good, at least I know something I can give him for Christmas!

In the afternoon after church, Tommy opened his presents.  What do you get a 5th boy who doesn't need or want for anything?  A Costco-sized box of his favorite snack: fruit snacks, a pillow pet, just like his brothers, some mini Halloween marshmallows, for a special treat, and new Playdoh, because Playdoh can always use replacing.  Oh, and I can't forget the giant "Happy Birthday" helium balloon.  He loves helium balloons, really--endless fun for him!  In the afternoon, when we blew up some mini balloons to play with, Tommy kept pushing the little balloon up in the air, trying to get it to float up like the balloon filled with helium. Tommy wasn't quite sure what to do with the gift bags at first, but with a little help from his brothers, he was soon finding the prize in the packaging with gusto.  Although they were simple, he seemed pretty happy with his gifts.

After a delicious dinner of chicken pasta fagioli, we popped 2 long candles in the "T" robot, sang "Happy Birthday" and dug into the tasty cupcakes.  When we all started singing to him, Tommy was a little confused.  He was looking at us like "Why are all you weirdos looking at me and singing at me?"  And he had no idea what to do with the candles.  He ended up needing some outside assistance or the candles might have burned down to the cake!  Tommy really enjoyed the cakes, the fondant especially, go figure, and in classic kid-style finished off the fondant and frosting, leaving the cupcake whole and bald. 

The night ended skyping with Nana and Papa as he opened their gift, a pair of fleece lined Crocs.  He has LOVED wearing Crocs this summer, especially because he can get them on and off by himself.  But with cold weather coming on the Crocs were shortly going to be shelved.  I knew Tommy would not appreciate that.  So when my mom was looking for a birthday gift suggestion, the memory of fuzzy Crocs, that I must have seen at some point in my mom wanderings, popped into my head.  He loved them!  And he loved skyping.  He was fascinated by it.

Our snuggle boy was rocked to sleep by Dad, tired and feverish with no voice left, but in a cheerful mood, as always, from a special day.  Even though he never seemed to be tired or unwell, I could tell he was happy for his binky and his bed come day's end.  We love you our dear, treasured birthday boy Tommy!