Just a bit belated...

Considering Jacob's June birthday officially got celebrated in October, having Carter's party three weeks after his actual birthday doesn't seem so bad.  We originally wanted to have it the weekend right after his birthday, but due to another family event and other schedules, it ended up being better to postpone for a few more weeks since Craig had another weekend off coming up.  Thank goodness we did, because with strep and everything else that happened that week, I was happy to not have party planning on top of it.

So, successful tonsil and adenoid surgery behind us, we had another busy week--our first full week in a while--to get ready for the party.  A lot of times we do parties on Sunday to work around various schedules, but Saturday worked this time.  It was a challenge to get ready, especially with basketball late on Friday (Jacob had a great game with an all-time high in points--either 8 or 10, depending who you ask), but with a good team effort, it happened.

Carter and I settled on a dinosaur cake theme, and with some browsing on Pinterest and some brainstorming on our last grocery trip, we came up with some ideas.  They culminated in this:

The dinosaurs are from Lego Jurassic World sets.  The waterfall is candy melts (last used for the base of Carter's first birthday cake), and the dirt around it is gluten-free oreo-type cookies.  There are a couple Lego plants, but I did the grass and tried to do some leaves out of frosting (moderately successful).  My favorite part was the chocolate-covered rice krispie nest, complete with Cadbury mini-eggs (the fancy new shimmer ones).

We noticed later that one of them was cracked...looks like a baby pterodactyl was on the way!

This is the back view.  Notice that we used Legos to rig up a way for the raptor to hold the Happy Birthday sign.

See those black spots on the left?  They were supposed to be rocks but I realized as I did them that they looked a little like dino poop.  When Carter was looking at the cake, he thought the same thing.  So, I left it as "they're rocks...but maybe they're poop!"

Aside from the architectural complexity, it wasn't a bad cake to put together.  Stacking it was a little precarious, and trying to get the dinosaurs to stay standing was a bit challenging, but it held up better than expected.  The candy melts weren't as flowy as I expected but it ended up being like working with frosting--just without the fear it would flop down the side of the cake.  Otherwise it was fun putting down grass and leaves and letting the chocolate frosting be a little rough around the edges!  In the end, I was very happy with it, and so was Carter!

We kept the party pretty low key, as usual for his mid-winter birthdays.  We were happy to have some of Craig's family, as they were fortunately in town for a hockey tournament, and my parents, two aunts and an uncle.  We had a very nice time, ate well, then dug into the cake!

He ate the nest right away, as well as a chocolate "6" candle that he wanted but ended up not working on the cake, along with a small piece of cake.  Right after the cake, almost everyone had to go.  As it turned out he only had a couple gifts to open.  My parents gave him money (just as well, since he got tonsil gifts and needs nothing!), and his gifts from Craig's parents didn't arrive yet.  He ended up loving this giant Jurassic Park blanket from Uncle Brad and Ciocia Andrea...

...and another Lego Jurassic World dinosaur to add to his collection!

My aunt and uncle brought him a bag of fun stuff--a dry erase hangman game, a pack of those little capsules you put in water and release foam shapes (marine animals), and appropriately, a fossil egg.  You had to dig into the cement-like egg with a tool to uncover the fossils.  The egg was about 2-3 inches long and there were seven tiny pieces (one as small as a quarter inch long) that could be assembled into a little dinosaur skeleton.  He dug for quite a while (and made a huge mess!) and only dug out one piece.

But he did it again today and very quickly found most of the pieces...although the tiny head ended up in a bigger piece he had chiseled off, so we were lucky to find it!  It's a cute little stegosaurus!  He did a few of the foam capsules yesterday, too, and was very entertained by all of it.

So, all in all, it was a successful belated birthday!  I'm so glad we got to finally celebrate him and share some time with family.  It's always special to have people here (as it doesn't happen often).  Now on to another windy night (seriously, this has to stop) and a busy week leading up to about 30 hours away for me this coming weekend!