Monday, June 11, 2007

Arthur's Birthday

On the 10th we had a birthday party for Arthur.

The day before, Mark, Arthur and I made a pound cake. It's pretty scary how much butter and eggs goes into one of those things. We used the Joy of Cooking recipe and it came out much better than the emergency pound cake we bought from the store. The morning of the party I sculpted the cakes into the shape of a train. Arthur was psyched.

We'd been collecting boxes, and Mark got some butcher paper. So when some of the guests arrived we put them to work making a box train for Arthur to jump up and down on. Arthur was psyched. Then he stomped on it and used the coal tender as a step ladder to try to reach things on the Forbidden Shelf.

He got a lot of presents. We decided to follow some advice we'd heard and didn't press him to unwrap every single present in a materialist orgy. He did open a few, but not as many as our guests would have liked. One delayed present was from my Mom; I think she wins an award for sewing a mixer onto the front of a shirt. When Arthur discovered it the next day, he would pat his chest and say, "Mixer!"

He was also fairly impressed when everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to him. My Mom says that as he was eating his cake he was quietly singing the song to himself.

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