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The Weekend of Celebrations Continues!

We already got the solstice partying out of our system, but that was not the only thing to celebrate this weekend! First things first, it was Father's Day! Happy Father's Day to both my great dad and the awesome dad of my (our) kiddos! The boys and I let Matt sleep in while we made a fantastic breakfast of canned cinnamon rolls! I had great plans of making some from scratch, but had a little too much on the docket yesterday to actually get around to that. Luckily for me, Matt likes the canned ones just fine. Whew!

I told Thomas to hand Matt the card he made him for Father's Day. As you might be able to tell, it was more of a throw than a hand... You can also see all of the Father's Day presents already out on the table. Matt was so excited to finally get to open the Amazon box that has been tempting him for weeks that he didn't give me a chance to get photos. :(

I should probably explain the reason I bought Matt a bunch of toys though!

This is Gregor. Gregor was a present from Tom for Thomas' third birthday. He's part of a Playmobil set that has this guy all geared up on his adventure bike - he has a tent, sleeping bag and all kinds of fun gear that stores in the side cases. Matt loved it about as much as Thomas did and requested the same set for Father's Day for his desk at work. 

I thought it was a great idea, but then realized that this particular set represented time away from us - which is great on occasion, but not entirely what they boys might want to convey on Father's Day. So we added on two sets - a RV and SUV to pull it - to represent the family version of getting away from it all! Needless to say, the full package was quite the hit!

And not just with Matt... The boys were just as excited as their dad was. They were pretty impatient with how long it was taking us to put everything together, so I gave them the dad & daughter from the SUV set to play with - you can see their tiny luggage in the boy's hands. 

Why was it taking so long? Because these Playmobil sets have tons of associated pieces! They have tables, chairs, barbecue grills, a dog on a leash, the electric hookups with a campsite number and the electrical cable to hook up to it. The SUV has car seats and stickers to show the movies playing in the back seat. The camper has drawers, beds, a table that drops down to make a bed just like a real RV and even a bathroom with a sliding door, shower faucet that comes off the wall and a toilet with a lid that lifts up. Don't forget the trees, flowers, pots, pans, cups, silverware and tiny set of tools as well. It's pretty awesome, but a little time consuming to get everything put together right. 

Henry was mostly focused on trying to wreck the car, while Thomas set up the picnic table and added and removed the flip-flops for the youngest child in the set. The SUV apparently has a kit that can make it remote controlled - I can only imagine that is somewhere in our future... I wonder how well an RV can handle jumps?

Oh and the awesome cards! I can't take any credit for these, they made both of them at daycare. I think they are both adorable and I am super jealous of the one Henry made. I mean rocks??? That's kinda my thing! The fishing themed one is totally appropriate for summer in Alaska. I love that their teacher's are so creative. Way more exciting than the card I bought for them to sign / scribble on. Guess I'll have to save that one for another year...! (And you can barely see the tiny saw, hammer and screwdriver in the background - adorable!)

After breakfast, Matt had plans to go on a bike ride with Sam and Eric. I think it's a running joke that all moms really want for Mother's Day is to get away, so I can't tease him too much about taking a short ride with some friends. He had intended to leave as soon as the kids went down for a nap, but had a little bit more work to get his bike ready than he anticipated.

Which meant that Thomas woke up just in time to wave bye to his dad! He loves watching Matt ride his bike and his only concern is that his dad has his helmet on. Sam and Matt were still getting geared up when we first walked outside and Thomas was super concerned about where their helmets were - safety first!

This was the two of them all day! I had to keep reminding them to stop stealing pieces from each other, but once I said "If anyone else cries about anything, I'm taking them away" they were perfectly happy to share. Ha!

Also notice the giant present in the back. Heather's birthday is today!! Thomas picked out a brand new roll of wrapping paper and it ran out before I could even cover the box!  I was so irritated that I once again had to patch gift wrap, that I swore I am only buying people tiny presents from now on. (I'm 100% sure I am not going to be able to stick to that...)

I asked Heather earlier this week what cake she wanted and she gave me two choices - Blackout Cake or Black Forest Cake. I personally love chocolate & cherries, so I went with the second option. Big mistake! It was the most time and bowl consuming cake - I was washing dishes all day! By the end, I was so sick of the cake that I didn't even bother with making the shaved chocolate for a garnish.

But when I pulled it out to serve it, it looked so barren. So then I was all stressed out on how to make chocolate shavings in a hurry. Luckily, I always have a stash of chocolate and realized I could just use a leftover Easter Bunny to make them - perfect! (Although, maybe not for the bunny... "/)

I have a firm rule that if I make the cake, I don't sing. Unfortunately, the boys were absolutely no help, so I realized that if I didn't sing Heather wasn't getting anything besides sideways looks from her nephews. So I sang, while taking photos and apparently the combination of that and Heather blowing out her candle was hysterical to Thomas. Or my singing is just that bad...!

The cake turned out pretty awesome. And so nicely decorated with chocolate shavings! The bottom layer was a little dry, but I excluded the kirsch from the soaking syrup and therefore I had a little less than required. (I didn't think boozing up the kids was a good idea, so we winged it without.)

The boys went to town on the cake! Heather's expression in this photo was very much concern about how much cake Henry was trying to fit in his mouth at once. Luckily Thomas was taking bites off his fork and not trying to cram that whole triangle of cake in his mouth. It's so nice they try to take turns on who is stressing me out...!

This guy was covered in cake (and barbecue sauce) by the end of dinner. I was trying to get a photo of the mess, but got a bit too close to him. It's my fault for having the wide angle lens on the camera... Anyhow, you can see him starting to reach for the camera in this photo. And it's the last photo of the night that doesn't have a spot from where he smeared cake on the lens. Oh well - we were pretty much done anyhow! :)

So in conclusion...

Happy Solstice!

Happy Father's Day!

And Happy Birthday, Heather!