Mike's Birthday

Tuesday was Mike's birthday. He turned 32, which is quite hard for me to fathom since in my mind he'll always be 26 or 27. It's weird how the older you get, you tend to forget how old you actually are, yet you seem to stay one age, or age range, in your own mind. I think I'm 24ish all the time. He had to work for his birthday cause when you have a "real job" you can't take random days off. I, on the other hand, took his day off so I would be sure to spend some time with him. We were planning on steaks for dinner (Thank you Galen & Kahra for the gift certificate!) and I always make bread pudding for him for dessert. He really, really likes bread pudding. I really, really don't so I usually only make it for him on his birthday as a special treat.

I decided I wanted to make a cake for him too. When my mom was out here last, she brought her Wilton cake decorating set for me! It's full of different tips, piping bags, paste colors and other fun cake stuff. Needless to say, I don't need any huge reason to bake a decorate a cake now. I also happened to have a 40% off coupon for Michael's so I figured I'd get a cake pan and make him a cake. I let Grace pick out the pan and she choose a car, after I told her Daddy didn't want a princess cake, or a train cake. I figure I can use the car mold again some day.

When I made Grace's princess birthday cake, I only used one box mix and it didn't quite fill the pan, so I decided I'd use two mixes for this one. I filled the pan to the top. Mistake #1. I didn't think about it overflowing. Mistake #2.

As you can see, the cake overflowed in the pan and dripped all over my stove. I slid a cookie sheet in, after I smelled the smoke, and it helped a little, but our house was filled with smoke. None of the smoke detectors went off which means we probably need to replace some batteries. Thankfully, it still came out of the pan.

Icing it went ok, but I think I need to find a recipe without shortening. I'm not liking the taste too much. And the warmth of my hand was softening the icing too much and it wasn't piping very well, but in the end, it turned out ok. And pretty yummy too!

I think he had a good birthday. I got him Call of Duty: Black Ops. He's been playing it for the last 2 nights, so he must like it. Grace got him a battery charger for his drill. She wanted to get him a saw (or a "sawl" as she says) but the only ones Wal-Mart had were circular saws or reciprocating saws and she didn't want to get him either one of those. Not sure what he'd use them for anyway. Mercy got him World of Warcraft trading cards (She's a future geek).

This was the 8th birthday I've gotten to spend with Mike and I'm glad that I'm the one he chose to grow old with and share those days with :D