Small Things

We celebrated Gabriel’s eighth birthday today. This was actually a belated party as I’ve gotten a little behind. Gabe’s “paper” birthday is just a made up date and we have been trying to decide what we want to change it to. We are definintely changing his birth year by an entire year. On paper he would only be turning seven this year, which is pretty ridiculous. Realistically he is probably nine or ten, but we are sticking with just the one year change, making him eight now. This year I had an idea that would have been better had I thought of it last year, but then again, he might have not understood as much last year.

We gave Gabriel a gift for every birthday that we missed, including the day he was born.

He was really excited about his lemon cupcakes with their red candles. Red is Gabe’s color.

I LOVE this photo! He was so pleased because he blew out all his candles at one time after wishing for a motorcycle. (motorcycle?…I don’t think so!)

Okay here’s where things got funny. We were past all the gifts for his early birthdays and up to number six.

Seth and Keats are just dying to know what this gift is. Their expressions are hilarious-Seth is so serious, but there is also this horror in their faces at the possibility that Gabe is about to get something really good, that they don’t have.

I think Gabe at this point has realized what the gift is, but the other boys haven’t seen in the bag well enough yet to tell.

Now they know. Keats is green with envy.

I am not sure what has happened to Keats at this point (maybe he fell to the floor in tears), but Seth becomes very helpful. Do any of your kids do this? Try and help their siblings open their gifts?

“Here, let me help you with that Gabe.”

“You don’t want to pull that toy out of the bag all by yourself do you?”

“Since it’s your birthday, I’ll help you.”

“I don’t want you to have to work too hard.”

Gabe was very happy with this gift. Both Seth and Keats received remote control land and water vehicles the Christmas before Gabe came home from Liberia. He has been wanting one like theirs. While I typically don’t really buy toys, and especially not plastic battery operated ones, I do make exceptions and my boys absolutely love these remote control vehicles (rechargeable batteries are a must.)

Gabe is moving on to his last gift, the one for his eighth birthday, (a metal detector) while Seth and Keats examine his new car. It is a newer model than theirs so they are a wee bit jealous, but at the same time they are so happy to all be able to drive these around the yard together.

This little silver cup (thanks to Mimi!) was engraved with Gabe’s intials. This was the first gift he opened today, his baby gift. The expression on his face when he opened it was hilarious. Jonny described it as a “what the he#*” face. I guess he wasn’t expecting (or hoping for) a little silver cup.

This is Gabe’s remote control car, the Kid Galaxy Morphibians Explorer. Definitely his favorite gift today, although even after the funny face he made over the silver cup, he claims it is his second favorite gift. I think he was just trying to make me happy when he said that.

I made Gabe a pair of pajama pants out of some vintage red bandana material that was my grandmother’s.

I think those were his third birthday gift, only not sewn to his three year old size!

He had a really good birthday I think!

Now I am off to eat another cupcake and get ready for bed! I’ve heard that eating cupcakes just before bed is good for the figure.

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We all have special talents, and casting modesty aside, I will mention one of mine here: I am especially good at procrastinating when it comes to grocery shopping (or shopping of any kind really.) This means that all week I keep putting my weekly shopping trip off until I absolutely must go, and it just so happens to be Friday afternoon rush hour. I have issues and therefore shop for groceries at no less than three locations every week. Doing my shopping during this time of day on a Friday with my four younger children in tow is especially wonderful. That must be why I manage to shop at this time so regularly. So, yes, I do have a special talent, and now you know.

In all honesty, we did have a lot of fun on our Friday shopping trip. I find it very amusing to watch my kids dancing in the aisles to whatever music is playing, and have gotten used to people staring at us, which of course they do. As we danced past a huge box of fresh corn, Gabe mentioned that you can roast corn in a fire. Realizing that the only place Gabe could have learned that would have been Liberia, since we have never done it, I stopped my cart and asked him for more details.

“Gabe, did you roast corn in Liberia?”

“Uh-huh.”

“In your village?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Who were you with? What else were you doing? (details please?)”

“I would walk to the garden with my Grandfather and we would pick the corn and we would pick some peppers too. Then we would roast the corn in the fire and eat it.”

“Do you want to roast some corn tonight in a fire?”
“YES!!!”

“okay!!!”

Gabe rarely talks about his time in Liberia, but when he does, his stories of the time he spent in the village in which he was born and lived with his family (for five or six years before he was taken to the orphanage) are always happy stories, and they always break my heart. And since despite Gabe’s begging, I have not learned to make Liberian style fufu, I was more than happy to oblige him in making something like corn roasted in an open fire. That I can do.

Before you throw it in the fire, you are supposed to soak the ears of corn in water for awhile.

( Thought some of you might enjoy seeing my perennial bed there in the left foreground. The weeds are very happy there. I’ve no time for flowers this year. And that interesting structure in the background is full of a big mess of stuff. It’s sort of hazardous. So see, I don’t have time for everything. I also didn’t manage to get my bathrooms cleaned this weekend. They are very scary places right now.)

The chickens were very interested in what we were doing, and I might share more about that tomorrow.

Jonny took over for a minute so I would be in a couple of pictures. I typically hate the way I look in pictures but I don’t want to be an old woman with no photos of myself with my kids one day because I was too worried about my appearance, so I typically always hand him the camera for at least a few minutes.