August Birthdays!

August is a very busy month in our family. My birthday falls on the 12th, then Shawn's on the 20th, and then our anniversary on the 25th. We didn't do anything too special for any of these this year, but we still celebrated a little. Shawn insisted on making my birthday cake by himself this year. He did a great job, and the kids were really good helpers. I did give him a hard time for the slight tilt of the cake, but seriously, this is the guy who forgets to take the surran wrap off of the rolls before he puts them in the oven to bake, so this cake really was impressive.

I love Jack's face, he loves "hot". This was one of his last days with the pacifier allowed outside of the crib. He turned 18 months 4 days later, and when we turn 18 months, we have to grow up whether we like it or not.

Is there anything cuter than kids eating cake? Or cookies? Or anything made of sugar? There is a look of pure happiness on their faces that can't be imitated.

For Shawn's birthday we went up to his parents and did the traditional family party. There was dinner (I think Shawn chose tacos, he's easy to please), presents, unbelievably out of tune singing, and then fruit pizza. I'm glade that Shawn's family has several non traditional cake options for birthdays, because in my family we were pretty serious about the traditional birthday cake, and February got a little rough when we had 3 birthdays in one week.

Seriously, I'm not kidding about the out of tune singing. It was Jason's wife Rebecca's first experience with us for a birthday, and she learned quick, once she got over the shock. Somehow the Hammonds make it impossible to even try to sing it on tune if you wanted to. It is so funny.



And we all know that when you are a dad, you can no longer blow your candles out on your own. I'm still trying to decide if that is because you want to be nice to your little girl, or if you can't blow out that large plate of fire on your own, 28 candles is a lot of work.