Happy Birthday Jon!

We celebrated Jon's 5th birthday today. It was a quiet day for the most part, but still a lot of fun. After Jon woke up, the first thing he wanted to do was open his presents (of course). We waited until 8:00 and then woke up Dad before opening gifts. You may wonder what is with the scissors. My mom has gifts with curling ribbon. Seriously, true gifts. You try not using scissors.

Among the haul was a stuffed giant pacific octopus much like Jon's friend at the national aquarium, the Planet Hero moon buggy. Jon is very into Planet Heroes right now. A couple more of said Planet Heroes, and a cool amphibian remote control car.

His sisters kindly let him open his own gifts for the most part and also kindly offered to help him play with all of them all morning.

Opening presents (I think this one was Dazzle Venus)

Remote Control Car. Jon kept trying to move things away from his sisters.

Trent figuring out the car. Yes, he is reading the instructions!

This year, Jon wanted a flying saucer cake. As usual, I diligently looked all over the internet for ideas to steal. I took a few and combined and modified them into the final product. I have never used rolled fondant before, and I did not leave myself the necessary time to experiment, so I went with frosting. Many thanks to my good friend Megan (who is amazing when it comes to all things crafty and cooking related) for a good recipe and smoothing technique. It worked well. It would have been far more impressive if I had the fondant thing down, but Jon was so pleased that it really didn't matter. It does look like a homemade mom cake, but I am still fairly happy. If you want to do something like this and want a more spectacular finish, I suggest the alien spaceship cake from Debbie Brown's 50 Easy Party Cakes.

Note: sparkly decorating gel does not stay stiff. Either use butter cream or put alien on right before lighting candles. I had to scrape first alien off and start again after he slowly oozed down the window.

Our friends the Krajewskis joined us for cake and fun later. Jon has confused Leonora and Sonja as his cousins lately. I am not sure why. They are great people, and we will miss them when they move at the end of this month. They also brought Jon some space themed legos. Very fun.

I have video of Trent helping Jon with his remote control car and then of Jon taking it himself. Until I can figure out the orientation, however, I won't post it. What I don't have video of, but was more funny was of Trent playing with the remote control car while Jon followed him around chanting, "that's my car." and occasionally tugging on Trent's shirt.

Trent and Jason thought about racing this car and the other remote control car of Jon's. Sadly, the other car turned out to need its battery recharged. Another day perhaps.

Jon is such a great kid, and we are grateful for him and the chance to celebrate him and the things that make him special.