Two Birthday Sous Chefs

We love birthdays around here.  Well, wait, I love birthdays and therefore the kids now LOVE birthdays and Dan basically tolerates them :) Finley loves going to his friends' parties, shopping for their gifts, and he sure had a blast at Dagny's last birthday party so birthdays are pretty awesome.  Dan's birthday was last month and it was fun to work with the kids to plan Dan's family party.

But first things first, the kids posed for a "Happy Birthday, Daddy" photo before school so we could email it to him at work.

The "party" consisted of cake and a couple of presents, but not just any cake -- a homemade, chocolate chip cookie cake!  (Dan's request for a birthday blueberry pie was unilaterally rejected since he's the only one in the house that likes that dessert, sorry buddy).  I found a simple recipe on the web and we shopped for the ingredients (though I'll proudly say I've turned into a decent kitchen-keeper and already had 75% of what we needed in stock at home!).  We rushed home after school and Finley donned his apron, while Dagny opted for a pirate costume for the occasion.

 And it was time to begin!

 Both kids were excellent sous chefs and shared the whisk like pros.  Finley even held the bowl for his sister without prompting from me :)

 We popped it into the oven and watched it through the oven's glass window.  Then, we took it out to cool and even put it out on the porch to cool faster in case Dan walked in early! We iced a big D on it for Daddy (and Dan) and soon enough, there he was!   The kids had just finished shoving their dinner into their mouths and were ready to debut their cake creation.  We sang and Dan made a wish before blowing out the four candles on the cake (a pink one for Dagny, a green one for Finley, a blue one for Dan, and a yellow one for me).

 It was delicious!

  And a few days later, I picked up a small blueberry pie for Dan to enjoy all by himself :) Happy Birthday, Daddy!