Jack's birthday

Okay, so I promised myself when Jack was born that I would make his cake every year for his birthday. If you know me, you know I am not a baker and man oh man, I sure don't cook! I figured that Jack would always know his mom loved him if I sacrificed and made him a cake. The cake for his first birthday, a Winnie the Pooh cake, took me 3 days. Last year, he wanted Lightening McQueen, and that I pounded out in 24 hours. You'd think with all the time I spend on them that they'd be these fabulous looking cakes, but they really are just pretty basic! This year, I asked Jack what kind of cake he wanted, and guess what he came up with? He wanted Lightening McQueen with Cactus on him!!!! There is a part in the Cars movie where Lightening McQueen crashes into some cactus, and comes up covered in cactus. Hysterical....and even more hysterical that this is what Jack wanted for his cake! I searched everywhere for some sort of cactus cake decorations, to no avail. I searched every possible store in New England, to no avail. Apparently, cactus plants are not a big deal here in New England! I finally resigned myself to some floral moss that I could put on the cake, then remove before we ate it. GROSS! Anyway, at the last possible moment in the most obscure part of Michaels, Megan found some little cactus cut-out things. We used those, and Jack LOVED it. He still plays with the little wooden cactus cut-outs. Hooray!
And now, my baby is all grown up. Jack's promotion from "baby" to "big boy" on this birthday was harder for me than my 30th birthday! He is just changing so fast......

Christmas 2008

Yesterday was a busy day for us. First, we were finally able to go to Yankee Candle Village to see Santa with Jack. The snow has been so bad that we have had to put it off for a little while! Every year since Jack has been in our little family, I have taken him to see Santa and returned with a picture of him screaming in fright. We thought this year might be different....and in a way, it was. The first time we walked by Santa, Jack refused to see him and cried when we tried to force him to say hello. He eventually warmed up to the idea, and Santa went to great effort to get him to at least be calm for the picture. As you can see, Santa succeeded! This is the first year Jack's Santa picture hasn't been a "crying" one. My little boy is growing up!
Yesterday evening, we went to a friend's house for Family Night. It was great! Jack loves the family's three kids. We all dressed up and acted out the nativity. The 7 year old girl of the family, Julia, had all of out costumes and parts planned out ahead of time. I was Mary, Brice was Joseph, Jack was a shepherd, and Megan was a shepherd too. Jack did such a good job! He was fascinated with Baby Jesus....he kept wanting to take the blankets off him so that he could see his face. We had such a good time, and it was so nice to feel the special spirit of this cute family and talk about the real reason for the Christmas season.