Birthdays, Books, and Busted Cars

Samuel turned 6 last week. We went to see Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and ate lunch at his favorite restaurant. On the weekend, we had the family party. The summer he turned 2, the movie Cars was coming out. Now, he hadn't seen the movie (at that point, movies were limited to those we could rent and watch at home), but he really wanted a Cars birthday cake. Since the movie was so new, I could not find a bakery that had the Cars stuff to put on cakes. Thus began my foray into the amateur world of cake decorating. I bought a small Lightening McQueen car and a couple of others from the movie and made a race track cake and placed the cars on the race track (after thoroughly cleaning them, of course).

The following year, he wanted a Mystery Machine cake. Last year, a camping cake. This year, a jungle cake. Here is what I came up with:















Next, to books. Whenever we are in Target, we always stop by the dollar bins to see what's there. This time, they had some readers. Samuel picked one called "Animals in Africa". After he read it, he wanted to learn more about African Animals (OK, I put the idea in his head, but he definitely got excited about it). So, that ended up being a lot of bang for our buck.

And busted cars...why, oh why, do cars seem to run great until you make your last car payment? Our last payment was in May; beginning in May, the car has broken down (meaning, won't run) twice. We have also had to replace the key tumbler because my key kept getting stuck, the brakes, and two tires. This latest break down is going to cost us over $1300. It almost seems easier to buy a new car, but wait, we've replaced so much stuff, this one is almost new!