10th Birthday Success

This was one of my favorite birthdays.  10 is a big one, though.  Double digits and all.  It was probably the easiest birthday to organize.  Joel wanted a sleepover where he could stay up and play Minecraft all night.  We capped "all night" at midnight, because we still had to be up and ready for church by 9am, which was fine with him.  He was allowed to invite two friends, one of whom was unable to stay the night.  Having two friends was actually a little tough since all four boys didn't always agree on what to do and how to treat each other.  Jamie had a toughest time finding his place with the older boys, but once we were down to one overnight guest, things settled down nicely.

The cake was a huge hit!  And by "huge" I mean that Joel got to cut the cake Minecraft style which is 1/4th of the cake per slice, I think.  He served that one to himself, of course, and realized that was way too much cake for one person.  The other kids had smaller slices.  Good sense prevailed and none of them would eat all of theirs!  But it was fun trying.  

These next photos are primarily documenting Joel's first foray into the world of Lego Mindstorms (our gift to him).  It was really cool watching him build his first robot and dream up all the things he was going to program it to do for him.  High on the list are: chores, homework, and playing games with him, of course.  He was pretty proud when he managed to program it to move forward and backward.  Programming it to do chores is going to be tricky, but I don't think he's given up on that, yet.  I also loved watching Jamie watching Joel.  I'm sure he's making notes on how to make his own robots given the chance someday.

And of course, back to Minecraft.  This is his favorite ever toy with no other purpose than to look cool. He made sure to pose for the camera like he was off to go dig up some diamond blocks:

So far, 10 is pretty great.

Coincidence?

Today's birthday theme is Minecraft.  If you know what this is, you're a geek.  Sorry.  I'm sure there's counseling for you somewhere, but today's post is about Joel's birthday.  He's turning ten.  There are 10 red squares on a Minecraft cake.  Coincidence?  Maybe someone designing the game did actually ask how many squares should be on this cake, to which one replied, "my 10-yr old is going to love this game!"

This year, Joel opted for having his first sleepover.  (I know he's a little old to be having his first sleepover, but I'm a Mormon or some other random reason you'd like to insert here.)  And since Minecraft is a 4-person game, at least if you only have one Xbox/TV, he's invited 2 friends from school in addition to Jamie, who is fortunate to have the 4th spot in the "party".  

Yes, it's a party, in that there is cake.  But by how much work and planning I've had to do for this birthday, it's by far the easiest one we've had.  I love it.  I had so much extra time on my hands that I learned how to make my own fondant and decorate a cake with it.  And it's delicious!  Maybe it'll be my go-to for all those future parties we're going to have.  Wait, that's right, parties are losing their allure as the boys are getting older.  But who knows what's ahead?  If the Mayans are right, maybe it's a good thing I learned fondant before the world ends.  At the very least, I have another confection to replace the loss of Twinkies.

Cooking

I think I've figured out all of the reasons why I don't like cooking.

Cooking takes time.

Cooking means I have to be in the kitchen with a lot of food that I'd like to eat but shouldn't.

Cooking means making a mess that's going to need to be cleaned up soon.

I'm chopping, measuring, clanking around and someone else in the house can hear what I'm up to and is going to come looking to see how it's going to impact him:
"Will it taste yucky and I'll be forced to eat it?"
Or "will it be yummy and I won't be able to eat as much as I want of it?"

As soon as someone enters the kitchen to investigate, he realizes he's hungry, too.  But the food's not ready yet.  So, there's going to be the 1,405,837th conversation that goes like this: "I'm hungry."  "I'm sorry.  Dinner will be ready soon."  "Can I eat a fruit?"  "No."  "Can I eat a carrot?" "Well, ok."  "But can I eat a bagel? or fish crackers? or ...Can I make a smoothie?!"  "No, you can eat when I'm done. Go find something to do."  "But I'm hun...." "NO!"  and now I've lost my place in the recipe or sliced my finger.

And once it's done, there's always the critiques.  More salt.  Too bland.  Too salty.  I don't like parsley.  Too mushy.  Needs hot sauce.

It's too much for too little return.  If we all just ate a bowl of cereal, there'd be no complaints.