Happy Birthday, Gabe!

Oh how I hemmed and hawed over which to write first, the Long Beach post or the birthday post. Well, I figured you guys would want to see Gabe's birthday party 'cause it was so dang cool. I still can't believe my little boy is five! And I'm especially thrilled that Rob got to be home for his birthday. So, I put in a little extra effort and actually planned ahead for some special decorations and cake. First, the cake. 'Cause there's nothing like getting a house full of preschoolers all hopped up on sugar.

Yeah. This is the world map from Super Mario 3. And it's a cake. I'm not sure which of the Mario games is Gabe's favorite to be honest but once the inspiration for this cake hit I just knew I had to have it. I was also pretty sure that I didn't want to try to do it myself. Charis Covington at Charismatic Cakes whipped this little puppy up for us - awesome isn't it?

Look a tiny little angry Goomba. Don'tcha just wanna jump on his head? OK, that might get a little messy since he's made of frosting.

I found a site that sells Super Mario birthday party supplies so the table got all decked out.

And there were plates and napkins and cups...

And I hit up my sister to make so more Mario character costumes for Gabe so now when he has friends over they can all be Mario, Luigi, Bowzer, Yoshi and Princess Peach.

Oh yeah.

Gabe/Bowzer cracks into his presents. Lincoln Logs for the little engineer.

And a very cool book from Jamie that is autographed by the author and Al Uncer. I'm just a smidge jealous that Jamie got to meet him in person, that's is so cool!

A very red helmet and knee pads to go with...

Gabe's new bike! Now the weather just has to get nicer so he can go for a ride.

We borrowed Mario Kart from my sister. It is serious fun for the whole family.

Poor Gideon is wicked sick and spent most of the day sleeping, fussing, coughing or puking. I spent about two hours in the middle of Gabe's party taking him to a walk-in clinic just to make sure he wasn't getting too dehydrated. He should be OK as long as he can keep about an ounce of pedialyte down each hour. He promptly threw up all the pedialyte. And did it again and again and again. I decided that what he really needed was to give his tummy a rest so as soon as we got home I put him in bed. That was about 5:30 and with the exception of one short nursing session he's been sleeping since. Poor baby.

Our friends Matthew, Nora, Jonathan, Isaac, and Sara gave Gabe a couple of Mario shirts. This one is my favorite.

So Gabe, how do you really feel about your super-duper-exceptionally cool Mario cake?

Blow!

Gabe and his hero, Mario.

I can't stand pinatas. It's inevitable, someone's going to get bashed by the darn stick. But I like these pull string versions. Nice. No weapons.

The party is coming to a close. Guests are parting. Zion is getting geared up. Apparently you can run a lot faster by making yourself all aerodynamic like so. Try it sometime. Then send me a photo.