Brock is six

And now the other one is getting older on me as well!! Not too long ago he was Alice's pint size and now ... looks like we have a verifiable personality on our hands. A toast to Brock turning 6, the second youngest in his class, he was excited to catch up finally. To start the festivities, Matt has been working nights on this amazing many pointed origami star that Brock and him saw in a window that Matt promised to one day make for him. It turned out amazing and Brock loved it.

Both Brock and Alice celebrated early birthdays with the G-mahas on a fabulous disc golf trip with them to Justin Trails the weekend of August 19th. They Brock got his dream gift of a small stuffed Lemmy, a bad-guy koopling from Super Mario Brothers. Brock has declared him his second best snuggly friend, easing past Mommy Murray and squeezing in just behind Murray Murray. 

From us, Brock got a really fun circuit set that has sparked much joy. 

I bet you are all jelly of this lamp, which recently replaced the long standing hope for a lava lamp on Brock wish list.

Oh whoops. Looks like Alice snuck in the photo showcasing a gift from the G-nuts, a talking farm book.

Brock always requests to celebrate his actual birthday at the bus house with the G-nuts. With last years pregnancy trouble and my show and busy-ness this summer, we haven't had a chance to spend the night out there for a very long time so we were all looking forward to the event. Here is Brock playing with his new birthday goody from the G-nuts, this fairly fantastic Pharaoh playset where a snake pops out to eat another snake, a lava ball rolls, and there is a snake microphone to sound very Wizard-of-Egypt-like. 

This cake is my best work ever. Tee hee! Such a fall from Alice's narwhal. Luckily this is just his birthday cake and not his birthday PARTY cake. The idea here was that Lemmy rolls killer balls at Mario, so I told Brock I would make the balls for his real birthday. It was not easy. Balls are troublesome. So I staked them with a shishkabob and stabbed them into the coffee cake mom had made for breakfast the next day. It reminded me of an episode from "Nailed It" of perhaps what should have been a Yankee clipper ship - if anyone watches on Netflix.

Luckily, Brock was still impressed and we called it an icecream scoop cake.

and what a flame we had that eve! As my father still exemplifies, "keep the lighter fluid close and the children even closer"... something like that.

A toad that escaped before the flames rose too high. The toad is not the dark chuck in front, although I too for a second thought that might have been a mistaken victim of the Salem Toad Trials.

And grandma gets the coveted Alice lap nap, a rare and treasured moment.

Now it's party time! Lemmy Koopa is the chosen star character of the day, with Super Mario accents. I am lost without a theme.

Fire flower that is not quite accurate for colors, but highly accurate for Brock's choice of vegetables.

We had the party at a fun local park with a splash pad and had a huge turn out. I could barely keep up really. There were indeed some moments that went awry and I must have looked fried with Alice strapped to me and running about because every parent there was asking to help, but it was very fun and there were only a few tears. None of them mine, none for Matt, some for Brock (regarding the Pinata Candy Bag Crisis of 2019, followed by the Blind-Fold Crisis of 2019 both of which we will not discuss and their memory will perish as of the publication of this post) and just one long scream from Alice. What these days I would deem as a total success.

Ok, but the cake ended up looking pretty good. Lemmy is made with fondant, a terrible mistake on my part when I got sticker shock from a tub of gum-paste that I should have used. Fondant is really melty and when I was done making him he looked like he had had a stroke or maybe got in the way of his own ball and suffered under its girth. But Matt and I agreed to freeze him and put him on at the last minute which turned out to be a wise choice. 

Under Matt's supervision our homemade WhatBox pinata was a great success, and not so strong that we had to resort to the metal bat, but strong enough to last through a few rounds of many strikers. 

Brock opens some gifts from his friends later. Here are some delightful cards made by his friend Owen and his little sister Emory.

Aaannnnnd, once again, we took no pictures, having learned nothing from Alice's birthday at all. So I lined up what was left and took this one snap of a couple of the accoutrements. Featured is a mushroom topper for the Instapot (which held a vat of Brock's favorite white Annies shells), some "Lemmyade" (ok ok, I actually said Lemmyonade on the picture, which enraged me so because Lemmyade is so much better. Actually, upon writing this, I now realize I didn't know how to spell lemonade because I ACTUALLY typed Lemmyonaide" on the label. I didn't think it could get any worse, but now I see feel the chagrin deepening ever more). But really, in the end, what a great day. And really, really, in the end, I am absolutely in love with this guy and little girl and bigger guy and am beyond fortunate to call these wonderful humans my family.