Happy Birthday Alden!

Alden is now "Kree."  We had a week-long celebration, and I'm sure he enjoyed being able to say that it's HIS birthday. (He gets to blow out candles on other people's birthdays. lol)  His birthday was on a Monday this year, so we decided to have separate parties up in Bountiful and down in Provo so people wouldn't have to travel long distances. On Saturday, while Joe went to the priesthood session, the kids and I hung out with Joe's mom. We went to McDonald's to celebrate then went to Walmart. We bought some clothes for the kids and some cupcakes and a birthday cake. After Joe got back, we lit some candles on the transformers cupcakes (and of course, he picked out yellow candles to blow out).

He picked out YELLOW candles to blow out

Ellie was sad it wasn't her birthday

Blowing out candles..

Oops.. He got too close and almost burned off his eyebrows!

Yummy icing!

On Sunday, we went to Joe's grandparents' to watch the morning session with them. We spent some time together having lunch and looking through old mission pictures, then went over to Joe's dad's house to watch the afternoon session. Joe and I both fell asleep during the session, and Dad, Faye, and Jon watched the kids for us (thank you!). Jamie and Sam, and Tom, Laura, and Sophie, and grandma and grandpa came over later so we could celebrate Jamie's engagement and Al's birthday. We watched the video of Jamie's engagement, and sang Happy Birthday to Al. This time, we had a bigger transformers cake and Joe almost dropped it on my lap trying to angle it better for a picture!! Dad and Faye got Alden a "monkey pajamas (Alden asked for it)" and Tom and Laura got Al a cool cape and a mask with an "A" sewn on the back. :)  Sophie and Al played very nicely and enjoyed their time together as always!

Monday was just like any other day. Even though it was Al's birthday, we didn't really do anything special since his party was on Saturday. Well, he seemed like he was started to get sick, so I did spoil him by letting him eat whatever he wanted (consisted of juice, crackers, plain macaroni noodles, and popsicles) and played the wii together. In fact, he got to play as much game as he wanted the whole week because he really was sick, and we wanted him to get better by Saturday when we were scheduled to go to the Kangaroo Zoo for his party. He got to play a lot of Super Mario Bros. and he got really really good at it. lol.

Alden got these as a birthday present!

For his birthday, I wanted to try making a red mushroom and 1-up mushroom cupcakes. I had never tried using fondant before, so this was an adventure. I stayed up until 3 in the morning, kneading fondant and adding food coloring to the fondant....

Starting Saturday morning at 9 until about 2 pm, I finished making the cupcakes and made the "star" cookies for the party. I also had a round cake made from left over cake mix, so I made a mario world cake with pipes and a block with coins (Joe's idea). It took a loooooooong time to bake everything, but I think it turned out okay. (And thank goodness, Joe had the energy and will power to do all the clean up after I made all the mess in the kitchen. I don't think I could've done it.)

I made the shirt he is wearing (half of mario overalls)

At 3, we played some super nintendo mario world to celebrate the birthday theme, and then sang a song and blew out candles and opened presents. Then we headed to the Kangaroo Zoo. It's basically a warehouse full of bouncy houses, and the kids (Kelly, Anna, Ben, Alden, & Sophie) just LOVED it. They found this round bouncy house with a mushroom looking thing in the middle and spent almost an hour just jumping on and off the mushroom!

Anyway... All in all, it turned out to be a great birthday, and I think I'm going to try making those sugar cookies again (they tasted pretty good, kinda like those danish cookies you get during the Christmas season). :D