Happy Birthday, Andrew!

It is hard to believe that my oldest baby is 13 years old. Where did the time go?

Andrew wanted another ice cream cake this year. Let’s just say that the “fanci-fill” cake pan my mother-in-law bought me for Christmas a couple of years ago has come in handy. This year was a much more enjoyable experience making the cake. I learned from all the things that didn’t go right last year. This year I did take the easy route and used store bought ice cream instead of making it myself. I’ll be honest, I just wasn’t feeling that ambitious. We won’t even the cost of the supplies to make the ice cream versus the cost of buying it already made. I do not for a second regret using already made ice cream.

Andrew specifically asked for a “cookies ‘n cream” ice cream cake. It had to be a chocolate cake with chocolate icing with Oreo Cookies and “cookies ‘n cream” ice cream in the middle. No problem! I did use a Cool Whip and Pudding mix icing instead of my traditional icing, but mostly because this would be quick and easy and would not freeze up extremely hard. I put crushed Oreo cookies right into the icing. That was one of the things that I learned from “this” year – reserve enough icing sans cookie crumbs for piping through a star icing tip or find a larger holed star tip. I ended up just piping the shells without the star tip altogether because it clogged up with all the crumbs. Oh well, live and learn.

Andrew was happy. I am not sure what made him happier, the awesome looking and tasting ice cream cake or the Apple iPod Touch he has been wanting for a long time now. My bets are on the iPod. Not that he didn’t really want or enjoy the ice cream cake, but the joy is very temporary and short lived. Besides, it would be hard to compete with an iPod. It is a good thing, mom knows that she’s appreciated for the cake.

Of course, everything was short lived tonight because he still had to get to karate to do his off-campus PE hours. We did have homemade pizza before we headed out the door for karate. We had cake immediately after we got back from karate. His Aunt Jennifer, cousin Katlynn, and Uncle Jonathan were at the house waiting for us to get there to surprise him and to help him eat all that cake.

So this is what a brand new teenager looks like:

Happy Birthday, Andrew! I hope you had a great one. Here’s to another great year ahead of us.