The Party Proper for Little Boy Blue

It wasn't until several days after we returned home from Long Island that we celebrated Zeke's birthday party.  Before we left, I hadn't finished seasonal clothes switchover for ten (from which we still have not recovered), so upon our return large swaths of the house looked like this.

To balance the shotsnaps scales...

Moving on to less boring things, like this wonderful little six-year old boy!  As our first son, Zeke has ushered in a whole new set of experiences for John and I, with more to come, and we love that little heart that he so often wears on his sleeve.  He is growing so long and lanky these days that it's getting harder to remember the roly poly littler boy he once was.

Birthday breakfast!  Monkey bread! That's the only important part of the breakfast.

Poof!

 

I have to interject a long-winded paragraph here about Zeke's birthday cake requests because it made me laugh quite a lot.  He heard about a cake like this that my niece Hannah made, and it fully captured his imagination.  When I asked him what kind of dessert he wanted, his requests were as follows:

Z:  I want a cake, you know, a cake that is a surprise, and it's shaped like a knight's head, and then when you cut into it, CARAMELS spill out!  Little caramel knight's HEADS with eyes and mouths!

I thought about that one but didn't have the time to pull it off, so then...

Z:  Well, I want a surprise cake that when you cut into it (here his eyes got bigger and bulgier with excitement as he hit upon an astounding surprise filling)  JUICE comes out!

I nixed that as, well, juice and cake aren't the best pairing.  Next up...

Z.  Well, I want a cake that when you cut into it (clearly second-rate to the juice, but still okay, judging by the size of his eyes)  WATERMELON comes out!

I am mean.  Nixed this one, too.

Finally, I asked if he'd want any pie, instead.

Z: Yes!  TWO pies!  (Children are sometimes easily led astray from original intent. But then after a second's thought, he continued...)

    TWO pies that are stacked on top of each other!  Oh, wait!  No, wait!  I want a pie INSIDE of a cake so when you cut into the cake, there's a PIE! No, TWO pies stacked on top of each other inside of a cake!  

Well, we settled on two pies-- a strawberry-rhubarb and a chocolate cream pie, but then the morning of his party, I felt guilty and asked if he'd want to substitute a (small, EASY) cake for one of the pies.  He settled on a knight's shield, which I thought I could handle well enough, but then I didn't start frosting it until birthday company was due to arrive for birthday supper and ended up slapping it together, completely cheating by copying the best part (the bear!) from an internet image.

Did the birthday boy care one bit?

 

He did not.  

SUCCESS!

Tadhg and Skylark had a staring contest while Debbie and Aponi held them.

 

I wanted to get a picture of the strawberry rhubarb pie Millie made but instead got a picture of Cadence trying to lick the cake.

 

Someday, this boy will ask for boring things like cheesecake or ice cream sundaes for his birthday, but for now, we celebrate the imagination that can dream up a juice-filled cake.

Here's to you, Ezekiel Walker!  You are a wonder.