Ethan’s Birthday Party

We decided to wait until Mom arrived to have Ethan’s birthday party.  And then he ended up being sick when we had it planned.  So it was postponed again.  We finally had it this past weekend.  I made the cake and icing, and Mom decorated it with some spray green icing and stuff she brought from the States.  I never heard of icing that you spray on a cake to give it color- very cool!Mom bought Ethan a Thomas the Train set, so we did that as a theme for the cake.

It’s so hard to plan parties for young children around naps, etc., so we did it from 12-2:00 and just had sandwiches and fruit for lunch.  Then we had carrot cake and frozen yogurt.  I put in 3/4 cups of sugar for the cake instead of the 2 cups that it calls for, but made the icing with the normal amount of sugar.  I had planned to just scrape the icing and gum drops off of Ethan’s cake since we don’t give him sweets (the cake would be more than what we normally allow).  I asked Ethan if he wanted cake and had a piece ready to give him.  He responded, “No.”  He wanted yogurt.  I was surprised since all of his friends there were going to have cake, but of course, I was excited over his response. :-)  For those of you reading this and who are thinking, “If you don’t let him have sweets then he will ‘pig out’ at someone’s house when he gets older and can have sweets there,”… well, we do plan to let him have sweets, but right now, he basically doesn’t even know what he is missing.  I know a handful of people with older children who didn’t let them have sweets until they were from two years to school age and said that their children didn’t want or crave sweets as often.  The key is moderation, but when Ethan doesn’t even know what ice cream, cake, cookies, potato chips, etc. are, our attitude is why introduce it to him for him to just want it a lot.  Plus, Ethan is the firstborn.  It’s much easier now with him than it will be with Sienna.Next year we will probably be celebrating both Ethan and Sienna’s birthdays at the same party since they have the same birthday.  Hopefully that will work until they don’t want to do it anymore or have very different friends.Later in the day, we gave Ethan his presents and cards from family.  We also learned not to do it so much later.  He went down for his nap as soon as the party was over.  When he woke, I needed to nurse and then it was dinner time.  So he got his gifts after dinner… too close to bed time.  Not a good choice on our part. :-)  We bought this Thomas the Train book with attached tools when we were in the States in December.  He enjoys trains and loves tools, so we thought he would enjoy it.And he did!  I’m sure he will still enjoy using the real screwdriver, wrench, and hammer more than these toys, but he had fun playing with them.  The next morning, it was the first thing he asked for when Gary walked into his room.