Andrew's Antics

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Andrew's Spiderman birthday party

We had Andrew's 3rd Annual Andrewpalooza at Matt's parents house. Thank you grandma and grandpa! We went on Friday and helped clean their house and start to set up the party so that we wouldn't have to do as much on Saturday, there are always last minute things to do anyway. Andrew was SO excited!! We had 27 people there, including kids and a baby! (15 of them were family and us)

Andrew got hold of the camera that morning and took a self-portrait

Mommy & Andrew and Kim & Abby

Andrew and Abby chattin'

Awww, Andrew giving grandpa a hug

Ethan blowing bubbles (with the bubble wands)

The boys doing bubbles in the yard

He did pretty good with blowing them this time

He's really cute when he's blowing them

Andrew and the grandmas

Grandma Donna & 'Muh' (grandma Kathy)

Lighting the candles

He did a really good job blowing out the candles

Mmmm....I want more!

What??? My face isn't dirty!

Daddy and Mommy

Digging in some more (can you tell he didn't have a nap that day)

We invited Spiderman and he actually came!

He even brought a present (a Spiderman car and shirt)

I asked Andrew to say thank you and give Spiderman a hug, that's when he started to get nervous.

I was trying to get Andrew to stand with Spiderman so I could get a picture

So we said goodbye to Spiderman before he really started to get scared

Opening presents....this kid got SO many presents!!

Andrew sitting in his new chair and cousin Sam

A tractor

Silly boy!!

Grumpa, Andrew, and Muh

Grandpa Brad, Andrew, and Grandma Donna

Andrew, Aunt Angie, and Andrew's best friend Tony

Mommy, Andrew, and Daddy

Pretending to have a sleepover with Grandma Donna and Tristan

Making the Spiderman cake

Last Saturday we celebrated Andrew's birthday by having a Spiderman birthday party. So....Friday night I set out to make a Spiderman cake of Spiderman's mask. I was doing very well at putting both layers together without dropping it or breaking off any pieces, and the shape came out great. I just cut it, I didn't use a pan. But when I started frosting it I ran into problems. Last year I made an Elmo face cake and I had a VERY difficult time making red frosting. So this time I thought I would use pre-made red frosting, which comes in the tubes as decorator icing. Only this is really only made for doing detail work and not frosting the whole cake, which was starting to make my cake lift up and would have taken a lot of tubes. My friend and next-door-neighbor Arien came to the rescue!! She told me to call Fred Meyer's bakery and ask them for 2lbs. of buttercream frosting tinted "Spiderman red." They had it ready 5 minutes later and it was only $2.82!!!! Cheaper than a can of buttercream frosting! I will NEVER make and tint my own frosting again!! It worked so well. Then I used parchment paper to make the shape of the eyes and lay it over the cake and I piped white decorator icing back and forth. I traced the web with a metal spatula and then I used black gel to make the web and it came out so cool!!!

THE FINISHED PRODUCT:

THE MAKING OF THE CAKE:

Andrew only saw me carve the shape, he didn't see the cake until his party.

You see the red frosting piped into the dish, totally NOT spreadable!

The finishing touches

Ta-da! I think Duff from 'Ace of Cakes' would be proud, for an ameteur.

And...it tasted delicious with a marion-blackberry filling. Yum!! Andrew loved it!

Presents from mommy and Daddy

After we got home from Seattle Andrew got to open his presents in our freezing cold house. He was very excited, he had been wanting it to be his birthday for days. We let him open the presents from us on his birthday because we knew he would have a lot of presents to open at his party.

A Curious George movie

He loves Curious George!

(He doesn't watch t.v. that much, but sometimes he wants to watch Curious George and he's just about the only cartoon that isn't 'on demand' on our cable.)

"Ooooh, a big one!"

A scooter!

On to the next present

"It's Percy, and Thomas, and Salty."

Thank you mommy. Thomas the train bath toys to squirt you with....and he has. :)

"Ooooooh!! Another big one!"

This is what he kept asking for, a computer, like Ethan's

Daddy made him an ice cream sundae and he blew out the candles

Trying out his scooter inside

We decided to take it outside even though it was a little dark and rainy....notice who's riding it. I was trying to show him what to do.

Pushing Andrew back to the house (he wanted me to ride it though, he'll get the hang of it.)

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Happy Birthday Andrew!!

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday dear Andrew,

Happy Birthday to you!!

Happy birthday sweet boy of mine! You are a cute, adorable, funny, smart little boy. I love you to pieces! You are growing up so fast! You will always be my baby even though you say you aren't my baby. You're a big boy now.

Here is my special Andrew song:

(to the tune of "You are my sunshine")

"You are my Andrew,

My only Andrew,

You make me happy when skies are gray,

You'll always know dear,

How much I Love you!,

Please don't take my Andrew away"

It was snowing on Andrew's birthday when he got up, and we had no heat! He was shivering!! I said, "Andrew, you're cold." He said, "Nooo, I'm w--a--r--m," as his teeth were chattering. We let Andrew pick where he wanted to go on his birthday and he picked the Seattle Children's Museum. He had wanted it to be his birthday for several days, we'd been talking about it. We also took his best friend Ethan (who's 2 1/2 yrs. old) with. The boys had a blast!! The whole drive up there I heard, "Where are we going?" about every 2 minutes. They also played the yes/no game. They went back and forth and back and forth. Thank you Kelley and Donivan for letting us take Ethan with.

The birthday boy getting ready to go

Andrew loves to drive this car

Cheese!!

Chillin' in the boat

Cooking in the kitchen

Calling 'Muh'

Andrew pretending to sleep in the Japanese house (I happened to snap this picture with his eyes closed, usually he puts his hands up to close his eyes and then opens them right away)