Twelve
So, last night Xanga wouldn’t let me post anything. I assure you, yesterday did happen. It was the day we actually celebrated Jasper’s birthday, starting of course with his breakfast in bed. This time I got my preparation time down to 50 minutes, which was a 10-minute savings over the previous three times. He loved the breakfast but wasn’t able to finish it in one sitting!
Lina called later in the morning to say that she wouldn’t be home until almost supper time because she needed to take Flynn to the car repair shop to pick up his car. So, I got going on making Jasper’s cake. He had requested another turtle cake, which meant baking four little loaf cakes for the legs, a large oval for the body, and a small oval for the head. We used an iced ice cream cone for the tail. He also wanted the cake to be both chocolate and peanut butter, so I made chocolate batter and then made yellow cake batter with peanut butter instead of oil. I dropped globs of peanut butter batter into the chocolate batter and the result was a marbled chocolate and peanut butter turtle.
I also started the relish for the nshima dinner that Jasper had requested for his birthday, and made the dough for mandazis. My friend Robin came over with her two youngest daughters so there was a nice lull in the afternoon while we visited with them. After they left, we had mandazis to fry, a cake to ice, and nshima to make. AJ came over and we had a delicious dinner, followed by an episode of Top Gear.
Then Jasper finally got to open his gifts. He received the Nerf gun of his dreams, a soccer jersey, a book, and various other odds and ends. He also got his very first sword. When Lina and I were at the Faire on Sunday, and were asked to man the weapons shop for a while, Tim (the owner) told me that for payment I could pick anything from the store. Well. He had a couple of scimitars left, and considering the fact that we had looked everywhere to get a pirate sword for Jasper, I couldn’t resist. It’s different from all his siblings’ swords, and due to the shape it can’t be pulled quickly from the scabbard. It is also not sharpened–an important consideration when giving a sword to a twelve-year-old!
We finished up the evening by eating the turtle cake and watching a video (after Jasper went to bed).
Comments (1)
A scimitar! That is the coolest present ever!!
A very happy one-day-late birthday to Jasper!!