Older and Wiser

{Take a look at Ethan's face in the picture up there -- he was NOT a happy camper.}

A year has come and gone and Alex is officially a one year old!  After a truly horrendous day of unbelievable behavior from a certain oldest son, we finally got around to the promised birthday party right after dinner last night.   I had taken Grace and Sophie to the store with me earlier in the day to pick out all the presents and "decorations" for the party and once we got home they stuffed everything into a giant gift bag while I began to make the traditional first cake.  In a non-traditional way.  Each kid has had a yellow cake with homemade chocolate buttercream frosting for their first birthday.  Every kid except Sophie that is.  Between her food allergies at the time and the fact that she had checked into the hospital with RSV on her actual birthday, I didn't bother making anything that she wouldn't be able to eat anyway. 

Well, since lover boy {like Sophie} is ALSO allergic to dairy, I used a Duncan Hines yellow cake box mix and made a "Vegan Chocolate Frosting" to go on top.  And for the record, it was actually pretty good.  Jane especially really liked it.  I used Blue Bonnet Light margarine sticks {which are dairy free as an FYI} in place of the butter and just added some cocoa powder, vanilla, and powdered sugar.  It did the trick!  And also for the record, this is the most perfectly iced cake I think I've ever created.  Or at least it was until Jane and pretty much every other kid started taking swipes of the frosting off the sides and top.  Hahaha.

Once we got dinner over with (we had waffles in case you're wondering) we managed to make the kids clean up the kitchen so we could get our party started!  Alex was pretty tired and ready for bed at this point, but there was no way the kids were going to let us postpone his celebration for another day so we persevered onward and managed to sing his song, open his presents, and eat some cake in record time. 

He REALLY wanted that monkey plate that someone took out of his hands. 

He perked up a bit once he got the plate back and we started to sing Happy Birthday.

Grace "helped" him blow out the candle.

This here stacking cups toy has caused more fights between the older kids wanting to play with it than anything else in the house right now.

NOM.  Hahahaha.

And we're ready for bed.

All in all, quite a successful little celebration.  Hahaha.  Now we just have to gear things up again in a little over a week to celebrate Jane's birthday.  Hopefully her day will go a little more smoothly.  Although with the way they've all been acting lately I hardly think that's likely.  The following quotes {from this weekend} sum things up pretty nicely as an accurate sampling of what we're up against these days.  

ETHAN (to me and/or Scott at various points over the last couple of days):  "I  HATE YOU!!!!  I HATE YOU SO MUCH!!!! I'M NEVER FORGIVING YOU!!!!"

GRACE:  "It's not fair!!!  Why won't you buy me a dog???  Please?  Please?  PLEASE? I've been waiting for so long to get a dog!  It's not fair!  I want a dog!!!"

SOPHIE (in response to me asking why she was prancing around the kitchen like that):  "Because I'm popular!"

JANE (after telling her not to say "hate" along with all the other bad words she's been using lately):  "I say hate, I say mean, I say poop..."

ALEX:  "Mama!"

Until next time my friends!  Hahahaha.