If you've never heard of TWLOHA before, I recommend checking it out. The acronym stands for "To Write Love On Her Arms." Today is TWLOHA Day. Before I go any farther, I have to say that this is not officially recognized by the TWLOHA organization. Someone on Facebook organized it to raise awareness, and it went viral. Official or not, I'm participating, just as I did in the last one. All you have to do to participate is write the word "love" on one of your arms, take a picture, make it your user pic on Facebook, and be ready to explain about the organization. Here's my arm today:
And here's my arm from last time:
/end PSA here.
Anyway, things have been more or less the same as usual around here. We celebrated Matthew's third birthday on Saturday with a small family get-together. The weather was nasty, of course - the only one of Matthew's days that have had nice weather was the day he was born (as far as I know - it looked nice outside). Ever since, it's either rained or snowed or both. Regardless, he still had a good day. Unfortunately, Jeremy's parents (known to my boys as Shamma, Pops, and Grandma Dee) weren't able to make it up, and neither was Little Al or Lisa. Shamma sent her gift for Matthew north with us after our Easter visit, though, and Pops and Dee will be coming up later and we'll re-celebrate then.
Thankfully, my mom and dad (aka Pawpaw and Meemaw), my sister Jeni, her fiance Andrew (Aunt Denny and Unca Cocoa) and my niece Jessica (Dessie), my brother Travis (Unca Hockey) and my brother Andrew (Unca Diddy) were all able to come. We kept it very low-key, just hung out, watched the kids play, talked with each other, had grilled hot dogs and my mom's potato salad for dinner, and did cake and presents immediately after.
A note about the cake. I had originally wanted to do a double layered chocolate cake with a picture of Donald Duck (one of Matthew's favorites, referred to as "Dah-Duck") on top. To this end, I modified my buttercream frosting recipe to make it easier to pipe, and Andrew's mom Mary was totally kick-ass and generously loaned me her unopened cake decorating kit and box of frosting tints. Things didn't quite work out though.
For starters, my cake layers were 9" rounds. I wouldn't have had much room to write "Happy Birthday Matthew" on there once I got Donald's head on. Then, Matthew was watching me mix the cakes. At his request, they were going to be chocowate. As he watched me measure out cocoa, he started demanding "Mo chocowate?" I added a little more. "Mo chocowate?" Okay, a little bit more. This kept up until finally, I looked at him and said, "Would you just like Mama to make you a big brownie for a cake?" His eyes lit up, and he said "Pwease? Chocowate? Mmm. I sick." (Which he was, he had a chest cold.) How could I resist? I scratched the recipe I was using and made two large 9" round brownies.
Now, my brownies are thick, fudgy, and super heavy. Buttercream is fluffy and slippery, due to the, you know, butter. This is where I decided to frost them separately and write happy birthday on one and do Donald on the other. This would also come in handy in case anyone had to leave before cake and present time - I could give them a piece to take with, while still leaving Donald intact for Matthew. (Good thinking on my part, as Trav had to leave before Matthew opened his gifts.)
The day of the party arrived. My brownies were cooled and I was ready to frost. I also woke up with a killer migraine left over from the day before and the back of my throat was scratchy (precursor to the bug I have now). Oh well. I'm a mom. Time to suck it up, fake like I'm feeling peachy, and decorate my boy's cake. Not gonna let the fact that I feel like crap spoil Matthew's big day.
Let it be said here that I am NOT an artist, with drawing, painting, etc. I can paint a picture with words, no problem. But when it comes to trying to recreate a picture on paper, canvas, whatever, I suck. Seriously. I can't draw a straight line with a ruler. Let it also be said that migraines tend to make my hands very unsteady.
Knowing my lack of drawing abilities, I'd asked Jeremy to print a few pictures of Donald for me. One was to be used for reference, and the other would be cut into pieces for use as tracing stencils. I think I could have pulled it off if my hands hadn't been so shaky. But on Saturday, it just wasn't happening. So, no Donald cake for Matthew. They both got covered with white buttercream, and I tinted some frosting to a very pretty blue shade and piped "Happy Birthday Matthew" onto one of them. He didn't seem to mind at all.
He got spoiled rotten with presents, too. Jeni, Jessie, and Andrew got him a giant package of Mega-Bloks, aka Duplo blocks, or whatever you want to call the oversized Legos. He loves them. Mom and Dad got him another package of Mega-Bloks and a really cook book of five different puzzles from the Pixar movie "Cars," which is one of his favorites. Matthew had asked "Unca Hockey" to give him "chocowate" for his birthday, and so Travis showed up with a 44-oz bag of plain M&M's. If you haven't seen a 44-oz package of M&M's before, it's freaking huge. Matthew's eyes lit up! Shamma got him this kick-ass Big Wheel tricycle. It's the Go, Diego, Go! themed one, with all sorts of noisemaking gadgets on the handlebars, a seat that adjusts to three different positions (so that it'll grow with him), and operational turn signals. We got him a toy bowling set (he'd played with a stuffed one at Pops and Dee's house and loved it, and he loves playing the bowling app on Jeremy's iPhone) and a Lightning McQueen Hot Wheels car. He's been playing with all his gifts more or less non-stop since Saturday evening. It was a good day.
His actual birthday was on Monday - he turned three at exactly 4:59 pm. His godmother, Jamie-girl, sent his gifts from her over that day. We didn't do anything real special - I let him run around naked all day, since that seems to be his favorite thing to do now, we let him pick out his own dinner (turkey and cheddar Lunchable, with plenty of M&M's for dessert), and he didn't get scolded. I let him play in the kitchen a little bit too, with plenty of supervision, of course. Jeremy had to work, and I went and babysat Lola and Devon so that Jamie-girl could go to her college course, like I do every Monday.
Jamie-girl got him some pretty cool stuff too - a couple outfits, some aerosol Mr. Bubble bathtub foam for drawing, a giant pad of paper and washable triangular-shaped crayons, a bottle of Mr. Bubble bath solution, a package of big boy undies (with the characters from "Cars" on them), a bath scrubbie, and two large bags of Corn Puffs (his favorite snack - they're these, well, corn puffs, flavored like buttered popcorn, but without hulls. Lisa buys them for her son Preston, and Matthew got hooked on them during one of our trips down. They're basically like the puffy Cheetos, minus the cheese).
Other than Saturday and Monday, it's been a low-key week. I'm finally starting to get over this bug - I've got a bit of my voice back, and I can actually breathe through one side of my nose, which is a vast improvement. I've still got a nasty cough and sore throat, and I pulled a muscle in my side coughing, but it could be worse. I'm hoping I feel a lot better tomorrow - the living room's covered in toys and I need to do laundry, but I haven't had the energy to do anything while I've been sick.
Jeremy's making me homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner tonight - mmm. It's definitely soup weather right now - little chilly out today.
I think Jonah's starting to come down with the bug too - he's been whinier than usual today, and he's slept a lot. Then again, he woke up at 2:30 am last night and wouldn't go back to sleep till 6:30 am - which meant I was up till 6:30 am, although thankfully Jeremy let me sleep till 3 pm to make up for it - so he could just be tired, too. We'll see over the next couple days, I guess.
I've been talking to Betina a lot over Facebook chat lately, which is awesome. I've missed her, and now that she's sober, engaged, and a mama-to-be, it makes me feel even closer to her than I did before she checked into rehab. I am so proud of that girl, and I am proud to call her my friend. Betina, if you're reading this, way to go, mama. I can't wait to see you, and I love you, girl. Anyway, we just got the invitation to her and Mat's wedding in the mail today, so I need to fill out that RSVP form and drop it in the mail, even though I've already verbally replied to it.
Something funny there - June 26'th must be THE day to get married. That's the date of Betina and Mat's wedding, the date of my sister and Andrew's wedding, and I just found out the other day that Jeremy's aunt Ellen is also getting married that day. Wow.
I want to say Happy Third Anniversary to Phil and Polly Morris, up in Canada. Congratulations, you two. I love seeing all the lovey-dovey back and forth between you both on Facebook. It really makes me happy to see two adults that much in love, and that open about expressing it.
I think that's all I've got for now. The next entry is going to be three recipes - a mushroom soup recipe I promised to Jen Hutchinson a while back, my brownie recipe, and the buttercream modification I used for Matthew's birthday.
Much love to you all,
Megan
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