Zekey's Birthday Extravaganza!

Well, Zekey had a good birthday, though it was a very long day.  We woke up at around 7:45. (If its before 8:30, its too early for me...:)  Sam already had Zekers out of his bed and Braden was wide awake bouncing around.  I picked Zekey up and sang happy birthday to him while dancing around a bit.  He loves the dancing around part.  We all got dressed and ready and went to church.  After church was over, we went home and put Zekey down for a nap until we had to get ready to go back to church for a class. We got done with that around 4:30.  Braden and Zekey got to play and Zekey took a nap during that time, which was good.  We made it home and got the pool that we got for Zekey for his birthday out and filled it up.  Its a pretty neat pool.  It pops open and folds up like car sun shades.  You have to blow up the rim, but that's it.  We thought it would be an ideal pool for how we travel.  The boys had a blast.  I think Braden was having more fun in it than Zekers, but I'm sure that will even out.  I was really impressed with how Braden was handling it because he honestly hasn't been in a pool in a long time.  I don't think he even swam in one last summer.  Just sprinkler type stuff.  Anyway, he was dunking his head and having a good time and Zekey was just laughing and carrying on at Braden's antics.  He thought splashing was the best thing ever, but didn't care to stay in the pool the whole time.  He kept getting in and out.  It was very funny.  Then he proceeded to poo in his lil' swimmers.  Yeah, that ended the pool party for the day. :)  We "pressure washed" the pool, cuz...eeeww!  Yeah.  Then we  got the cake out.  **Okay, I have to tell you about the cake.  First of all, Sam said I could get a piping tip set (56 pcs, woohoo!) and a book that has all these different piping patterns and how-tos.  I was soooooo excited!  I'd also gotten some parchment triangles to make bags.  Very convenient!  Well, the cake was a challenge to say the least... This thing just about irritated the mess out of me.  I made it into a several layer cake, but I don't think I let it dry out enough.  It kept sticking to the parchment paper.  When it came time to move it to the cake plate, part of the bottom layer came apart.  I didn't use a cake round and I should have, but I was trying to make it quickly and I didn't want to buy a whole stack of them.  I also didn't have any cardboard available to make my own.  Space issues and all. :) It ended up VERY lopsided.  I put store bought cream cheese icing between the layers and on the top.  I was trying to pair something with the chocolate and should have just used all chocolate. Oh, well.  Anyway, when I put the decorative edging on, it stayed fine until later that night.  Parts of the border kept falling off.  The cream cheese icing wouldn't support the weight of the decorator icing.  At first I was getting all irritated that it wasn't working the way I wanted it to and then my wonderful husband was like, "He's 1, he doesn't care and even later when he sees pictures and stuff, he'll just think it was so great that you took the time to MAKE him a cake!"  (Thanks, BABE!)  For the lettering, I actually used white chocolate bark, melted and colored.  It worked out well, because the balloons and lettering were in effect candy.  Yeah, both boys liked that! **  Okay back to how the day went. We put a single sparkler in it.  Normally, I would put however many for how old and then one to grow on, but just thought the one was good.  We sang happy birthday to him twice because I forgot to get out the video camera and also that's when our digital camera's batteries decided to die.  Zekey really liked it and Braden and Sam helped him blow it out.  Then the fun part.  I gave Zekey the first piece.  He SHOVELED it into his mouth.  I think we have a major cake lover on our hands! I'm thinking he's pretty partial to chocolate, too.  He ate two pieces.  Granted, they weren't huge or anything, but still....  The pictures say it all.  What a big ,fun, yucky mess! The rest of us also had ice cream.  We didn't give Zekers any because of the impending even bigger mess that would have caused.  He gets bites of ours anyway whenever we eat it;)  Sam and I then had to work as a team to get him cleaned up.  I'm surprised more of the cake didn't end up on the floor, but then again he did eat most of it!  We then had a bit of a dance party as Sam was searching for music on iTunes.  Zekey and Braden really like dancing with Mommy, especially when I twirl them around a bunch!  (Today Braden had Zekey in a bear hug twirling around the room saying that he really likes to dance with Zekey.  It was so funny!  They were both giggling quite a bit.)  We really did have a fun day!!  Enjoy the pics.