Ridge's Big Birthday!

Our little baby is one? I'm not really sure how that happened but it did. The day has come and gone. We decided to go with his interests on the theme for his party and his very favorite thing are balls. I made a football and basketball cake, with baseball cupcakes. The story with the cakes is a long and sad story. We were planning on having his party on Saturday night. I woke up early on Friday to make the cakes. I baked the round cake in a glass bowl and quite a bit of batter spilled out of the bowl onto the element of the stove. I figured it would just burn off. When I increased the oven temp. for the other two cakes the batter started to burn off, with flames. I just happened to look back in the oven. I thought, "Hmmm, I don't remember turning on the oven light, and why is it yellow." Next thought, "Ohh crap!" I was thinking of baking soda when I turned to grap something to put the fire out. In my panic I grabbed flour, which did absolutely nothing. My next line of defense was the fire extinguisher. I had to spray it three times to get the fire out. Kyleigh has a clear head in emergencies. She had gathered up Katelyn and Ridge and had them outside where the smoke and fumes from the extinguisher didn't get to them. I was upset when I had to throw my cakes away, and the bread dough that was rising on the counter. I was more upset when I noticed the film from the extinguisher spray. I wiped off the countertops and cupboard door surfaces. Then I opened a cupboard that had been closed and noticed the film of white on the shelves and dishes. That's when I broke down. I ended up having to spend the next 1 1/2 days washing every dish in my house, and cleaning every cupboard. I started the whole project over on Monday morning (we moved the party). I spent a good part of the day getting those cakes ready. I planned to let Ridge dig into the round basketball cake. I just knew he was going to have so much fun digging in his cake. I was SO looking forward to it. After dinner we set Ridge on the table. He reached for the cake right away. We weren't quite ready for that. The candle was lit on top. We said, probably with a little much gusto, "wait, wait, wait!" He thought he had done something bad and started screaming his head off. He wouldn't have touched that cake with a ten foot pole after that. We tried to take him outside so he would calm down. Didn't work. I even tried giving it to him the next morning. The second I put it on his tray he started screaming again. In summary of this long story, I worked for three days on some cakes that ended up being thrown away and I didn't get my favorite pictures of all time. The first birthday cake pictures. Very sad.

Other than the screaming cake incident we had a fun party. We had a "ball" dinner. It included meatballs, potatoes shaped into balls, and corn (they are kind of like little balls). We also had a jar of maltballs and everyone guessed how many were in the jar. Katelyn guessed 182,000 and Naiya guessed 2. Holly won with her guess of 57. There were 63.

When we went to open gifts Ridge was interested for a minute. The second gift he opened was a bag of balls from my Mom and Dad. After that it was all over. The only thing he cared about was throwing those balls. The next day he did love the gift we gave him. We gave him a little radio flyer stroll and ride trike. You can steer it like a stroller when they are too little to pedal themselves and take the handle off for a trike when they are bigger. We have it in the house and the girls are always pushing him around the gauntlet (the circular path). The girls also love to ride it themselves.

I don't remember what life was like before Ridge. He is such a fun little boy. He is always smiling and laughing outloud. He melts my heart every time he toddles to me with his arms up. I love to hear him say "Mamamamama." It makes me smile when he pushes his car around and makes a car noise (new event in our house). I love to watch him dance every time we turn on his ball popper or any other music. I love his sweet morning smell. I just love him! Happy Birthday to our Ridger man.