A party and a revelation for me

Paul's birthday was last week, but I strategically planned his party for this weekend thinking I would be a little recovered from having our latest baby.  I had HOPED to have a bit more time to recover, but I survived and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves so I'm going to consider it a win.  I did not get a lot of pictures as I often take lots of pictures and most of them are not very good, plus, I seem to have pictures in excess these days, or maybe I'm just moody and did not want to take pictures today.  Whatever, I only have a few to capture these memories, but they are cute and they make me happy, so here there are.

Paul LOVED this toy.  He was entirely too excited about the balls in my opinion.  I know, kids love balls, but I cringe at the thought of them as we are constantly loosing them and finding them and the chaos of it all drives my obsessive-compulsive nature a little crazy.  But anyhow, I love his serious face as he showed me his balls.

Here he is again, showing me.  Notice how serious this is.  HERE is THE BALL.

So, here is his cake and this is where the revelation comes in.  I have traditionally started making a slightly more healthy cake for the birthday parties I have at home.  I am always trying to choose more healthy options and get my kids accustomed to good healthy foods.  Traditional birthday cake is really not healthy - not even carrot cake.  Sorry to burst your bubble, but it is the truth.  So I make this recipe I found called nutri-cake.  It is pretty healthy.  It has whole grains, protein, and fruit.  It is also pretty yummy and the kids like it a lot.  Now, I have recipes for frosting ("healthy frosting" made from melted raisins, and the "regular kind" made from powdered sugar) but I have never had much success making frosting.  I don't have the patience for it I think - or just have never quite gotten the ingredient ratio quite right.  I can get it to taste good, but then it will be too runny, or I can get it to be a good consistency and taste horrible.  In any case, I know my limits and to top my nutri-cake, I used store-bought frosting and I'm ok with that.  This is the beginning of the revelation.  (On a side note, I should add that the cake tastes great WITHOUT frosting, but half the fun of a birthday is frosting - at least for me, because I LIKE TO EAT FROSTING!!  But we often make this cake and eat it "as a snack" without the frosting - and no one complains :) The next part has to do with the picture.  It is supposed to be a train.  could you tell that before you read this?  Maybe.  Paul likes trains.  So I put a train on it because I like Paul.  It is that simple. 

So, the revelation part: I am good at a lot of things.  But some things I am just not good at and that is ok.  I am not an artist.  No one wants me on their team for pictionary.  Now, there are a lot of blogs out there and the people on them seem to be good at EVERYTHING.  Seriously, some of the blogs I follow, I honestly wonder if these women leave golden nuggets in their toilets instead of the regular human waste.  Everything they try to do turns out BEAUTIFUL!  Well, that does not happen here at our house and you know what?  I'm ok with that.  My cake is not perfect.  My train looks like I let my 2-year-old draw it (probably my 6-year-old could have done a better job) but I'm ok with that.  Coming from a slightly obsessive-compulsive-wanna-be-perfectionist, you have no idea how freeing it is to admit this to myself.  My cake is not PERFECT, but it is acceptable and it is yummy and it is even a little bit good for you!  Kinda like me.  Thanks, Paul, for having a birthday so I could figure this out :)