Kees is FOUR!!!!

Kees' actual birthday was on Wednesday. This totally worked in the kid's favor. On Wednesday we went to Chuck E. Cheese. I hate Chuck E. Cheese for the most part. It's loud, the pizza is nasty, most of them are, let's say, less than clean and it's generally not what I would call a good time. When we go we go to the one in Vancouver. It's not the closest but it's the cleanest Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) I have ever been to. Almost every time I have been there I have seen some teenager up in the tubes with some sort of cleaner and rags.

We went all out, or as "out" as you can go at a CEC. I got pizza, drinks for everyone and an all you can eat salad. We all know this means one person eats salad and then the next guy goes. For what you pay for a crappy pizza I do not feel the least bit guilty for that. They owe me a salad after what they serve as "pizza." I also got a beer. That helped a lot with my attitude about the outing. I also got LOTS of tokens. We started with 100 and then I got another 100. They couldn't have been happier if they had won the lottery. They played, had a piece of "pizza" on the fly and wore them selves out. We got some prizes or junk as I call it. Oh happy day. And that was just the "day of" celebration.

All week long he has known that there would be a party on the weekend. He walked around singing "Happy Birthday to You" all week.

Today was his birthday party. I invited a few kids from the neighborhood along with their parents. But first, let me go back a few days.

I went to Fred Meyer on Tuesday to order his cake, a MONSTER TRUCK CAKE. I have ordered monster truck cakes for the past few years.....they DISCONTINUED their monster truck cakes. Dang it! I ordered a plain ole cake and figured I'd decorate it myself. After thinking about it I decided to just make one my self.

The cake that I like to make is a Guinness Stout Dark Chocolate Cake and brother....it is good! I'll tell you that it includes, 4 cups of sugar, a pound of butter, 1+ cups of sour cream, 2 cups of heavy whip cream, and a pound of semi sweet chocolate and a few other things. PLUS....I doubled the recipe. We needed a big sheet cake for decorating. I made the cake and then had to refrigerate it over night. I split it so we could put frosting in the middle and then froze it so I could manipulate it if I needed to. I then made the 4 pounds of frosting...I am not joking, it weighed 4 pounds! So last night I frosted the cake and started decorating. I made a grand stand out of cake and put Jelly Bellies in as people. My brother Rex and his wife Tina helped me decorate. We all really got in to it. We made flags, dirt, flying trucks, and then the best idea of all..... the Jelly Bellies needed faces. Oh we laughed and then started drawing faces on them. They were the funniest part of the deal. It was great fun. It took about 3 hours but we made a hell of a cake. And it weighed about 15 pounds! AWESOME!!!

This morning when the kids saw the cake they could hardly keep their hands off of it. Kees didn't understand why he couldn't drive his trucks on it. And of course, we all laughed at the faces.

The party started at noon. We made lunch for everyone. The kids played. It was pretty free form. Next we got to eat the cake. It really is good. Then gifts. Kees' eyes were the size of saucers. Man it was cute. At this age when a kid gives a gift they help the reciever open it and then show them the cool stuff it does. It's pretty funny. Then about 2:30....it was over. The kids played with the new toys and Bob and I cleaned up.

So Kees scored. He got a family night at CEC and then a full on party on Saturday. I am beat and glad it's over. It was really fun preparing and especially fun decorating the cake. Happy birthday my baby. I hope you had fun too.