Seven-Year-Old

Wednesday was Ethan's birthday. We started off the day by sending him to school with four dozen homemade chocolate chip cookies for his class. I assume they were well received; only a hand full made it home uneaten.

That afternoon I was hard at work wrapping presents and making the most delectable cupcakes in the world; yet another amazing recipe from America's Test Kitchen. I think each cupcake had about 1 oz of bittersweet chocolate in them. Yum! So, when Ethan got off the bus after school, I was too distracted to oversee homework. I think I was busy tasting the ganache and the frosting... Anyway, he nearly avoided doing his homework at all (until right before bedtime when I remembered.) When Dustin got home from work, we Skyped with Grandma and Grandpa Sharp so Ethan could open his present from them. He received the much anticipated 7-in-1 Maxus Dragonoid Bakugan. If you don't know what Bakugan is, a picture is worth a thousand words.

From this:
To this:Ethan and Owen have wanted this toy for about 2 years. They had even been saving up to buy it, until Grandma spared them from using their life savings.

After that we headed to Pizza Inn for Ethan's birthday dinner. I had planned on making Hawaiian pan pizza, but as usual, I was unable to juggle cupcake baking, a clingy baby, and homemade pizza sauce and dough. Go figure... Dustin was supposed to take a half day at work, which would have been a BIG help, but he just couldn't leave (supposedly).



After dinner, we headed straight to Dustin's cub scout pack meeting. He's the Webelos leader at church. We spent an hour there. The kids got to play some outdoor games with the other scout families and then ran around in the church sprinklers. We drove them home sopping wet. By then it was already 8 pm, so we had to quick get on Skype with Grandma and Grandpa Oehrig and have Ethan blow out his "7" candle. We could hardly wait to taste the chocolatey deliciousness of the cupcakes and open his other presents, of course. After one bite of the cupcakes, we all thought we'd died and gone to chocolate heaven. Seriously, if you like bittersweet chocolate, get the recipe here.


We finally tucked the boys in bed at 9:52 pm. I remember the time, because I told Ethan that he wouldn't officially be seven for 10 more minutes, at 10:02 pm. I told him that when he was born, I was so happy to see him and that he was so cute. Then I told him that he is still cute and gave him a big hug and a kiss. I wonder how long I'll get away with that? I made him promise that he'll always give me hugs, even when he's grown and has kids of his own. A mom can always dream, can't she?