Gunner's Fifth Birthday

My Gunner turned five last week.  I can't believe how fast time is flying, and just how big he is getting.  I was telling him about how I went to lunch with some good friends on my due date with him, since I wasn't in labor.  I told him how those good friends' now-six-year-olds were just babies.  I told him about how the next day, I was in labor all day long, and how our friend, Maggie, and her then-baby Charlotte came over to hang out with us.  And about how we walked and walked and walked all over our neighborhood that day.  I told him about how I called Spiff out of his evening class when I thought we needed to rush to the hospital, and about how he came right home and ate a hurried dinner before we zoomed to the hospital, only to wait and wait and wait all night long for Gunner's arrival.

How has it been five years?!  It feels like only yesterday.

But G is so excited to be five.  He feels like a big kid, and he feels so important.  Spiff and I reveled in celebrating his birthday at this perfect stage of his life, when birthdays hold some sort of magical childhood quality.  G asked for balloons on his birthday, so we got him balloons.  He asked if we could decorate, so I bought him a birthday banner.  He woke up to a festive house, and he exclaimed, "Oh, it's just what I wanted!"  I love how such small things can bring such great joy.

We had birthday cinnamon rolls in the morning with Maggie and her kids (who are still helping us celebrate G's birthdays), followed by a trip to the local zoo, a park, and a stop at the drive-through for lunch.  His friend spent the afternoon playing with him.  I made him his requested birthday dinner of pork chops and vegetables (I love that he chose that over pizza).   He opened presents, and we had friends over for cake and ice cream.

Such a perfect little birthday.

For me, the rest of last week was spent in birthday preparations, admittedly made more difficult than it had to be by yours truly.  I did cake.  And it took way too long, as it usually does because I really don't know what I'm doing.  But it was mostly fun (bonus!), and Gunner truly appreciated my effort.  He loved his Tintin Cake, and he even told me that it was better than the Thomas the Train cake at the grocery store bakery.  So, I think that's a win.

One funny cake story:
At the very end of making this cake, I was applying the pictures to the side of the cake.  I put the Yellow Plane up, and one of the little grey wing supports fell off.  Those supports were grey fondant wrapped around a toothpick.  When I looked at the plane, I couldn't see either of the two supports.  I looked and looked for the second support, but I never found it.  Eventually, I figured that it had fallen off and I had thrown it away with some other garbage, so I cut out two little grey strips to replace the other, heavier supports, and called it good.

I finished the cake, took pictures, showed it off to Gunner, posted pictures on FB, and served the cake to friends.  Then late in the evening of G's birthday, after the kids were in bed, I was in the kitchen cleaning up and taking care of cake leftovers.  I looked at the undisturbed picture of the yellow plane...and found my missing support sitting on top of the pontoons!!! 

Can you see?

It's all I can see when I look at the picture now.  I can't believe I couldn't find it until after everything was over.  So silly!