Happy 2nd Birthday, Jaden!

It is hard to believe that our little man turned 2 years old on the 24th of February.  Time has both crawled and flown by.  We decided to wait and have a kid’s party this past weekend because all of our expat friends would be returning from their vacations.  But we were able to celebrate on Jaden’s birthday as a family and with some local and expat friends who live near by.

Since his birthday was on a Monday (a class day for me), my tutor came and after an abbreviated lesson we decorated cupcakes.  She really enjoyed learning how to make the icing and making designs on the small cakes.  It was a great time to talk about life and home and just get a little more personal.

I baked a buttermilk chocolate cake which is usually a hit with both expats and locals.  Sometimes baked goods can be too sweet for the locals’ tastes but this recipe always gets a thumbs up.  So much so, that by the end of the night when the last of our friends left I asked Josh where the leftover cupcakes were.  And with a sheepish grin he said, “We all had a few.”  I had made over two dozen for like 8 people!

But we all had a good time.  We gave Jaden a “plasmacar” (they are really cheap here) that we are hoping is going to be really good once it warms up.  He can ride it in the house but I am looking forward to taking it to the park.  We also gave Jaden an album that has pages of him with different family member from back home.  He loves to look at pictures and say the names of everyone he knows.  Jaden was also blessed to have received packages and letters from family back in the States — thank you guys!

I thought it would be good to introduce Jaden to the idea of birthdays just before his arrived (plus, we had my dad’s and Josh’s birthday to become familiar with the concept).  We learned about birthdays and what it means by reading “Happy Birthday, Danny and the Dinosaur” over and over again.  And when I say “over and over” I mean like 10x a day!  It wasn’t until the end of his kid’s party that Jaden actually took off the Danny and the Dinosaur part but would just say “happy birthday!”.

I let my creativity run away with me for this birthday.  I think it is mainly because this is the first time I am not teaching in a class of some sorts (whether at a school or “club”).  But anyways, I was given a car shaped cake pan from another expat and decided that would be the theme.  We made cars out of cardboard boxes for each of the kids and set-up a “car wash” of paper and balloons (bubbles) for them to drive through.  When the kids arrived they were given markers to “detail” their cars and color them however they wanted.  Then we attached “seat belts” that allowed them to wear the cars and move around.

Josh ended up stabbing himself twice with the knife while cutting the cars out.  We were doing some last minute cars in case more attended and Josh cut himself deep enough to probably warrant stitches.  I say “probably” because he ended up calling a friend who is a doctor and after describing it to him, Josh cleaned it out and superglued it!  Crazy boy!  We’ve continued to watch it for infection but it seems to be healing.

After getting the cake pan I decided I wanted to try my hand at fondant.  Although it is a little pricy we were able to find some marshmallows and I received powdered sugar in a previous package.  I made a royal mess in the kitchen and all over myself, but in the end I would call it a success.  Don’t mind that the car is pink, I was really going for red.  I also made some cupcakes to ensure we had enough and with those I made a road.  After baking bagels and tortillas for quesadillas we were ready for the party!

We ended up having 7 adults, 6 kids and one infant not including our family.  So it was wonderfully chaotic just like a 2 yr. old party should be.  My heart was just overflowing by the end of it that we were able to have such a real celebration here even though we weren’t surrounded by our family and friends from the States.

The last of our friends left around 10:30pm (after arriving around 5:30) after a lot of great conversation.  I am also thankful that the Father gave me enough energy to clean up afterwards.  I think I was still on a high from having everyone over that I enjoyed putting the house back together.  This turned out to be a very good thing, because the following day we didn’t have water in the morning and I ended up having last minute guests for both lunch (a neighbor) and dinner (old friend and her family from Karamay)!

Check out the photo album on my site to see more pictures!