THE Pirate Birthday Party
Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 10:46AM Seriously, it looked like a Pirate got sick in my house. We had pirate stuff ALL over the place. all.over. In the midst of all the preparations and preparing the K-man for his party, he asked me: "Why is my birthday going on for so long?" :) I aswered, well it's probably because I'm trying to make up for last year, when you had your birthday mostly in the hospital, because that was the day we brought Darius home. To which he answered: "I liked that birthday".
Shows you doesn't it, my year long mini-guilt trip, not necessary. I love the perspective he has on things. And he's grown into such a big boy almost over night, it's as if the "big boy" button got pressed and we don't have to deal with temper tantrums anymore (well not so often at least) and he understands about "no" and even tells me, while he's asking for something, that if the answer is "no", he won't get upset. One morning, recently, he woke up and said "Mom, I forgot how to be naughty". Well that my boy, is pretty darn fantastic in my book.
right, back to THE party.
I was asked what the invites looked like, so here goes:

So on Wednesday evening I baked the birthday cake, ready to be assembled on Thursday evening. This time round I cheated and used cake mix instead of reading a recipe and making it from scratch, I figured the kids would be more interested in playing anyway.
So by the time the Kaydin was in bed and the drinks poured, I had Gideon assemble and carve the cake, I figured, he's in the construction industry, he can build a cake ;) And he most certainly can.
Gotta love the audience:

some reinforcing was needed:
The brown stuff in the front was supposed to be a treasure chest, obviously it looked better as rocks, after I realised that cutting the lid off was probably not the best idea.
The next morning we added the sails and the very cool pirate candles. Et voila! One cool pirate ship cake!
The cake, plus the millions of other stuff was then transported to our local park, here where we live. I figured all those kids, plus their assorted family members were a wee bit much for our tiny little house. Plus it gave them a chance to run around and play, which they did. the.whole.time.
They were having such fun, I had the hardest time getting them round up for the all important blowing of the candles, in fact, they were in such a hurry to get back to playing, we didn't even have time to sing for the birthday boy, neither was there any time for a photo, before I could get it, they were off again. Gotta love their priorities, and I'm not being sarcastic either, I really do love that it was more important to run around and play than worry about some stupid candles that had to be blown out. Kids just know, don't they? What's really important in life, run around with your friends and explore every little thing you see. It's awesome.
The rest of us, were more stationary:
And by the time everybody left and we were cleaning up, this is what Darius thought of everything:
The rest of the day was spent quietly at home, recovering from all of that :)
In local news:
Dhs300 fine for parking car with engine on:
Brigadier General Khalil Ibrahim Al Mansouri, Director General Department of Criminal Investigation said, "There are lots of reasons behind the car theft, neglect is the most important reasons where owners leave the car in operation, which makes it easier for thieves robbing them without trouble."
The good Brigadier's insight is just astounding. A sign of the times I guess, crime is on the up here in the UAE, lots more reports about cars being stolen recently than when we arrived.
As statistics show, the most common case of aggressive driving reported was 'the sudden change of lanes', which was reported 6,690 times. 'Driving in a way that poses a threat to the public' was reported 2430 times, 'reckless driving' 1741 times and 'overtaking on the hard shoulder' 1364 times.
I can totally relate to those numbers. I've been driving here for almost 7 years now, you tend to see a lot. a.lot. Just this morning, I was fortunate enough to experience a truck "driving in a way that poses a threat to the public". Waiting at the robot, on my way home, I was in the left lane, which is either a turn left or go straight lane. He was in the lane to my right, next to me, a lane that's clearly marked for only going straight. No problem, obviously, he needed to turn left and proceeded to do just that, cutting me off completely. Good thing I wasn't in much of a hurry otherwise he would totally have crashed right into me. You get kinda blasé about it after a while, which is a good thing really, I don't suffer from road rage at all.
We send much love
ps. The littlest boy, is almost walking, he takes 5 to 6 steps between us now.







