Birthdays aplenty (and a link to a GREAT dino cake idea!)

Late June and early July are busy around our household, full of cakes, cupcakes, presents, pool parties, and lots of fun. Here's a rundown of our 2010 summer birthday season:

This is what 4 looks like:

Monkey is all decked out on his birthday, ready for his first day of summer program. (all of a sudden, he thinks wearing his hat sideways is cool - we let him, just because he's so cute) He was late getting to summer program because he had to open his presents first...

.....and play (quite vigorously) with the foam swords in Mommy and Daddy's bed!

(I feared for my camera - and my life during this epic battle!) That hairy arm holding the other sword is Mac's, not mine - I felt like I needed to clear that up!

This is what 7 looks like:

.... all hopped up on a sugar high at her "school friends" birthday party. We held the party on the last day of school so I could just walk them all across the street from the school to our backyard for some fun.

And here's a good dose of what 35 looks like:

Mac is now 35 years old - now on the slippery downward slope towards 40! We had a great steak dinner with salad, corn on the cob and potato skins, and topped it off with a homemade carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. mmm mmm mmmmmmm, it was YUMMY!!!

I searched Allrecipes.com for a carrot cake and icing recipe, and I found these: (it turned out so well, I thought I'd share it with you!)

Cream cheese frosting recipe

Carrot Cake recipe - I left out the walnuts, although I do love them. Sweetie just doesn't like finding "crunchy things" in her cake. I also cut back the oil and replaced 1/3 cup with some applesauce. I would have used more applesauch and less oil, but I didn't have as much applesauce in the house as I thought I did (unless I wanted to get into the single serve lunch pack style ones!)

Mac was pretty impressed that I made the whole cake from scratch - I usually make other cakes with the mixes - they just come out so well, and are so quick. There's lots left in the fridge, and I'm looking forward to another piece for dessert tonight! (and then I'll have to play my weekly 2-pitch baseball game... I'll be more sluggish around the bases than usual!)

The "Extended Family" Birthday Party:
Our kids' birthdays are 5 days apart (well, 3 years, 5 days, to be exact!), so we usually combine the birthday party we throw for our extended family (hey, only feed them once and get it over with!) This year, we planned it far in advance because we had to work around our camping, and other people's vacations. When it got closer to the date, it turned out the World Cup final game was going to be on that day as well! AND, being of Dutch descent, there was no way we'd be missing the game! So... we turned it into a World Cup/Birthday party. We went all hillbilly and brought the tv out on the deck, so we wouldn't miss a thing. (Hillbilly 'cuz we also have a mini-fridge on our deck - not a streamlined, modern one, it's brown, with fake woodgrain on the door. Yeah, it's awesome) We have a pvr, so I told everyone we could pause the game for presents and cake, if need be! (so thoughtful, huh?)
We invited everyone to wear ORANJE and cheer on the Dutch national team. Mac celebrated the event with a Heineken and his "fan" shirt. (he's of Scottish descent, but was willing to cheer on the Dutch since he realized his kids are 1/2 dutch - what a dork!) I think he was willing to do it because I'm the boss and I told him to! ;)

In the end, the Dutch did not win, which was a bit of a letdown, but the party had to go on....

Both Sweetie and Monkey were presented with Dutch jerseys to wear, but by the end of the day, Monkey ended up in this Transformers shirt. (He must have been trying to "masculinize" a bit, since Sweetie is painting his nails here - although the nail polish was blue - that's ok for boys, right?)

So here's what I REALLY wanted to show all of you out in blogland:

Monkey's "Dino Dig" Cake!
My monkey is sooooo into Dinosaurs! He tells everyone he meets that when he grows up, he wants to be a "Fossil Digger". He's THAT kid who can rhyme off the names of all the dinosaurs - yeah, all the oddball ones that no one has heard of, like the Corythosaurus. On my hunt to find just the right dinosaur cake idea, I came across this one on Disney's Family Fun Magazine website. I knew it was perfect for our future fossil digger! It's super easy, and can be modified to your own taste, as I did. It originally called for chocolate graham cracker pieces all around the edges (just like jagged rocks), but I couldn't find any, so I made T-rex teeth out of leftover sugar cookie dough to line the outside. Please pardon the messy icing job around the edges, it was decorated after midnight the night before (as most of my cakes are made around that time!) He thought the cake was AWESOME. I thought so too (if I may say so myself!).

So, tell me, how do you celebrate birthdays at your house?