Happy Birthday Michael

note: Michael's birthday was actually on May 18th, but his mother was too busy "celebrating" to post anywhere near his birthday.

Michael made it to double digits! He celebrated this special birthday by having a handful of "guys" come over for a Double Feature Movie Night. They began the evening by watching "Herbie: Fully Loaded" and the giggling could be hear all the way in Bahrain! What a fun movie for 10 year old boys!

After the movie was over, we served Michael's favorite meal of crepes and bacon (had to be beef bacon - no pork to had around here). Some of their favorite toppings were chocolate chips, blackberry syrup and powdered sugar. After getting completely sugared up, they played until we could get the kitchen and the rest of the sugar ready for them (i.e. the cake). Michael wanted a cake that looked like a box of movie popcorn (he actually wanted one shaped like a movie projector and settled on the popcorn cake). Why can't my children ever ask for simple cakes? Miraculously I found marshmallows and fruit roll-ups at the store and was able to pull the cake together.

Somehow we got them settled down enough to watch "Monsters vs. Aliens." (Don't ask how we obtained a DVD of that movie already - the answer involves a dark alley in Khobar and I'm sure you'll sleep better not knowing the details.) The movie didn't disappoint, the boys LOVED it.

Michael also wanted cookies brought into his class on his actual birthday so I made his favorite sugar cookies. If you are looking for a fabulous sugar cookie recipe, you must try this one - it has cream cheese in it - it's better than any other ones I've tried. In fact, Michael gave each of his classmates a cookie and a small canister of M&Ms. One of his classmates said the cookies were so good that it made the M&Ms taste bad!

We continued the week-long celebration by having our close friends, the Neumans over for dinner, cake and ice cream. What did Michael want for dinner? Crepes and bacon again! Poor Steve probably made over 100 crepes that week! Anyway, it was a nice, intimate little party that wrapped the celebrations up perfectly.

Happy 10th Birthday, Michael. You're awesome and the world is a much better place with you in it. We love you so much!