Happy Birthday JT!

JT's is always our first birthday of the new year - and our last for several months until Dad's in May. Since he turned 11, no party, but we did have some fun with him anyway. He decided he wanted to have lasagna for dinner so I made a huge pan of sauceless lasagna for our stage 1 Feingolders (including JT) and a smaller pan of a more traditional fare. It turned out quite tasty and when pressed for a veggie he chose creamed spinach. (Now this always shocks me that my children all *choose* to eat spinach. I never even tasted spinach until the first time I served it to Ruth in order to boost her iron intake. I have 2 distinct memories of Mom serving this to Dad and to no one else, passing it off with a quick, "You don't even want to try it. I just made it because your father likes it." Huh?! This is the only food I remember EVER not being forced upon us as in "you have to eat at least two bites or you go to bed with no supper" - currently a favorite line of my own with my children, by the way.)

For dessert he requested an ice cream cake. Adora made a chocolate layer cake which I cut apart, layered with mint chocolate chip ice cream, iced with homemade whipped cream and dumped chocolate Sprinkelz on the sides.

As an added bonus, just as we were about to sit down to eat, JT's godparents - Rick and Tammy - showed up at our door. They had a gift for JT and, after being convinced to put their frozen groceries in our freezer, agreed to stick around for dinner with the Birthday Boy. What fun - almost like a real party!

We ate dinner and JT even agreed to donning the special Birthday Boy party hat - but only long enough for us to sing Happy Birthday and eat cake.

After cake we moved to the living room where a giant wrapped box sat on the table, topped with 2 smaller ones. David presented the first gift on behalf of himself, JM (who is in Ohio with Grammy this week) and Noah. It was a bag of Mint Milanos - JT's favorite cookies. Ruth got to present and then promptly covet the girl gift (since Betsy and Miriam are also in Ohio) - a box of marshmallows - Feingold stage 1, no corn syrup and half of them were pink!

Then on to the big box. Now, Ben and Philip had a computer game ordered for him which had not yet arrived, as did his dad and I. So, to mix things up and make it more fun, Adora and Ben spent an hour wrapping box inside of box inside of box. JT opened the first box and was quite surprised to find...another box which, when unwrapped revealed that he had received a box of diapers? Nope, just another box which, when unwrapped revealed that he had received a box of his favorite cereal? Nope, just another box which, when unwrapped revealed that he had received a box of baby gummies? Nope, just another box which, when unwrapped contained two little pieces of paper. One from Mom and Dad with a small picture of Madden 08 on it and one from Philip and Ben with a teeny picture of FIFA 07. JT seemed to enjoy our little charade but at the end of it all, could only look at me and wonder......why? To which my only response was, "Hey, without a party I needed something to put in my blog, son!"