Fun Times and Celebrations

We had Madelyn's birthday party on a Sunday.  Remember my original plan for a small party?  How does 27 people (plus us) grab ya?  Ah, I'm not complaining.  The first 20 were family.  Seven sounds practically rational.


As Mad had napped earlier in the day (whew!), she had a lovely time and was pleasant to all.  When Luke Skywalker dared to walk away with the stool from her art desk, she simply said, "No pwease," and it was returned immediately.  Yes, Lukie may still be traumatized from his own birthday party the day before (they're birthday mates... someday Heather and I will just combine our efforts), when he dared to sit in his own car with Mad.  She screamed so long and loud that I took her on a walk and then a drive.  I pondered calling Tom from my car and telling him to just meet me at home until I realized that my phone... and purse... were still back at the party.


***Note to self, maybe save those no-nap-having, first-haircut-getting, my-new-bed days for weekends when everyone isn't having parties.


When it was time to open presents, Madelyn was at her art desk drawing furiously.  I wasn't sure she'd come over to open presents, since she still doesn't really care about them.  However, she does care about bows.

Daddy opened presents with an occasional Mad-assist.  The gifts she received were lovely, mostly non-plastic, and useful.  Mama likes them as much as Mad.

The moment everyone was waiting for was nearly upon us.  Cake!  We had one for Mad with a penguin, which she liked (though not as much as her stuffed one from Grandma's house).  

 

And one to announce the baby's sex.  (Have I mentioned the gender cake plan?  If it's blue inside, we're having a boy; pink, a girl.)

But before we got to that, Tom set up an old "foolproof" gender predictor test on our couch.  He put a spoon under one pillow and a knife under another.  I came into the room and sat down on one of the pillows.  According to the knife under my pillow, I am having a boy.  One of my friends, Dayna, was thrilled.  Her son, Seth, is about five months younger than Madelyn.  She is almost due with her daughter.  If I were having a boy, she and I would be swapping clothes.

Dayna tried the gender test (Tom set it up again while she was out of the room) and it said she was having a girl.  Probably made her feel secure that we're having a boy.  I think she was pretty stoked at the idea of getting all of Mad's old clothes.  I would be.  Girlfriend's going to be passing down 15 good-sized boxes of clothes.  Probably more than I've owned in my whole lifetime!

Here are some of the peeps just before the gender cake was cut.  Dayna, her husband and son are sitting at the table (yes, it's still the small table because, no, the big one still isn't finished... argh!).  My dad's standing right behind Tom.

Here's the cake (as if you didn't already know):

Let's see what Dayna thinks about the color of the cake, shall we?

Way to conceal those emotions, girl!  (Sadly, I didn't get to see Dad's reaction, but I know he's happy.)