Fairly early today, her Nana and Popo made a video call on the Skype and she talked to them for about thirty minutes.
Instead of a birthday cake, she chose to confetti/vanilla cupcakes with confetti sprinkles. So she and I got to work making the cupcakes just after lunch.
Look at how deftly I can spoon the batter into the paper cups! I was French-trained, you know.
Of course the best part of making cupcakes is eating the batter. Raw egg, salmonella be damned! Who doesn't like eating raw batter? It's awesome!
While we were making the cupcakes, Kiki was sculpting boats out of paper. These may look like scraps of paper glued together, but she actually got really intricate in cutting different objects to include in the boat.
Because it was her birthday, Marney got to pick what big activity we were doing today. She picked sledding on the sand dunes. Because of my surgery and Connor's condition, he and I didn't go. Because we were staying home, we decided to keep Max and Jack home for a nap.
It has been below freezing all day today, and with the windchill it was about 5 degrees. So before they left for sledding, everyone had to get bundled up.
Sledding is available on the sand dunes at Jockey's Ridge, a state park. When they got there, they went into the visitor's center first which had a bunch of really cool hands-on displays about the dunes and wildlife.
Of course, it's difficult to get hands-on when your hands are bundled up in giant gloves or mittens.
Sleds in hand, they bravely decided to leave the warmth and safety of the visitor's center. Now they were all alone on the cold, unforgiving tundra of the North Carolina desert.
They had to hike about 20 minutes to get out to the dunes.
When you see all the trees and shrubs, you forget that these barrier islands are nothing more than loose beach sand that piles up over the centuries. But when you get out on the dunes, you feel like your in some bizarro-world cold version of the Sahara.
Now that's a desert!
At the top of one of the largest dunes, there was a "tree" made of christmas lights. That must be one large extension cord.
There was a lot of standing water between the dunes, and all of it was frozen over.
The kids wanted to jump out and try skating on it, but only the very top was frozen, so this wasn't going to be the day they tried ice hockey for the first time.
Then it was time for sledding.
They went to this smaller hill because the wind wasn't quite as strong (and thus not blowing in their eyes) on top of the main hill (with the christmas tree) it was a veritable sandstorm and everyone's eyes were stinging from the sand flying around.
But even at this location, the sand was still getting into everything.
Finally back home, I went outside to supervise while they all warmed up in the hot tub. As you can see, I was bundled up because i wasn't going to be in the tub.
It was so cold that as the water would drip down the side of the hot tub, it would freeze into icicles at the bottom.
After getting "re-heated," it was time to frost the cupcakes.
Aha! Cupcakes with funfetti for everyone!
Best. Birthday. Ever.
1 comments:
Marney...I am so glad that you had the best birthday ever. You look great without that butt tooth. So glad that the Tooth Fairy is so smart that she can find you anywhere.
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