Advent Day Seven--Celebrate Eli's Birthday!

For those of you who are confused, no, today is not Eli's birthday. Tomorrow is Eli's birthday. But Timothy is taking a final tomorrow and won't be home until around 9 pm, so we decided to celebrate a day early.

The children and I colored a birthday banner.

That's pretty high-falutin' decorations for us. I think it is way cute and the kids loved being able to help.

The children wanted to help with the making of the cake, but they were banished to the downstairs when their picking in started to mix icing colors.

This is the first cake I've made without Timothy's help since . . . I can't remember. I'm amazed it turned out at all.

Eli is a vehicle fanatic so when Miriam suggested a car cake, I told her she was brilliant and made one.

Eli loved it. And the birthday banner. He kept pointing to it and saying, "Happy Birthday, you." He refers to himself as "you" pretty often, but never by name. Strange.

We gave him a glow worm. If you haven't been introduced to this toy, you should find one. Its face lights up and it plays six different lullabies. Emeline got one when she was one and loved it for years. We picked it for Eli because he loves music so much. It was a solid choice.

We also got him a froggy potty. I know, but he's too young to realize. I'm not going to start potty training gung-ho--after all, of my four children only one is actually potty-trained. But, that one started getting trained at two, so I thought I would familiarize Eli with the idea. I also sort of hoped a cute potty would motivate others in the house as well. We'll see how it all goes.

Forgive the video below for not being the best filming job ever. I was trying my best but Eli was so busy dancing that I couldn't keep up. Plus, excuse us for sounding grumpy with the kids. Holidays are hard on parents because the kids are off the wall. But the dancing is cute and Eli is adorable--as always.

Eli and his Worm from Andrea Young on Vimeo.