Sunday, June 01, 2008

In Which We Celebrate Maggie's Onehood

Maggie has been one for ten days now, but her birthday was inconveniently timed (it was on a Thursday, and it was right before Memorial Day weekend -- I'm not blaming her, exactly, but ...), and so we had to wait until yesterday to throw her a party. We decided to do a barbecue in the park, which is always risky, and I spent the week leading up to the party glaring at the sky in an ultimately successful attempt to intimidate the weather into behaving. And it did, so I am clearly a force to be reckoned with.

Barring any unfortunately prankish weather, the park is a great place for a kid party. You can have a lot of people without overwhelming everyone, the kids are entertained without the need to plan activities, and the mess stays somewhere that is not your house. Max was delighted with the whole experience, and proclaimed it the best Big Brother Celebration ever.

Note Max's static electrical hairstyle.

We got Maggie a boyfriend for her birthday.

And she liked it so much, we went ahead and got her a spare.

Aunt Susie and Uncle Augie came, too, which satisfied Max greatly. He has a small toy hot wheel car that is an exact tiny replica of Augie and Susie's car. Ever since he noticed this, Max has been fascinated by Augie, especially after Augie took him for a ride in the life sized Augie car.

Mama convention.

Daddy convention.

Since Maggie was born in May, I gave her party a springtime theme. The cake I made is called a Dirt cake. It is basically a chocolate mousse with crushed oreo cookies, made to look like dirt. To complete the illusion, I served it in a bucket, with a shovel, and decorated it with gummy worms and candy grass, which I cut out from green apple flavored liquorice. It looked very much like a bucket of dirt. I was quite proud.

The illusion was a little too good for our five-year old friend Kate (seen here looking worried). She asked me repeatedly if the cake was really dirt, if the worms were really worms, and she continued to be dubious even after I reassured her.

Kate's sister Julia had no such reservations. Julia is not a reservation-haver by nature.

Eventually, all parties tasted the cake, and it seemed to go down pretty easily.

I was expecting Maggie to plunge face-first into her cake. I was even hoping for it a little bit, just for the photographic gold mine. She was actually quite delicate, though -- she pinched small portions with her thumb and forefinger, brought them to her mouth, and licked them thoughtfully. It took a while longer than I was anticipating, but she did eventually build up a good faceful of chocolate. Our stroller, in which she was sitting at the time, may never be the same again. And now, we can officially say that Maggie is one year old. Happy Birthday, my clever, strong, ferocious, and oh, so beautiful treasure. I am so glad you came to us and agreed to be our daughter.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was indeed a fun party. Good food; good company; and adorable kids - what could be better? And the cake was so so yummy (-: Who knew that worms and dirt could taste so good?

Raging Wombat said...

Great shots! But I'm still not convinced that the cake wasn't really dirt, despite the fact that I went back for seconds.