My Birthday Portal!

It's no secret that Portal is my favorite video game of all time. Well, Thursday was my birthday, and Amanda made me the perfect portal cake:


Oh, and on the left there is the present my kids got me (with their saved allowance): 1600 MS Points to buy Portal: Still Alive.

What a great family!

Random's Birthday Bash!

Random turned 10 on May 2nd but we just had his birthday party on Friday. He's a Legend of Zelda freak (video game first released in 1986 but frequently sequeled. Most recently reincarnated as The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the Nintendo DS in 2007) so we thought we'd center his party on that theme.

For the invitations I printed up these covers, made game inserts that restated all the information (time, place, rsvp etc) and put together an official party soundtrack (music from all the past Zelda games in orchestral form, techno remix and original midi glory). There was a big stir when Rand showed up at school with a big pile of Wii games and started handing them out. The case is modeled after the most recent Zelda game for the Wii...Twilight Princess.

Troy and I (also big Zelda fans) reviewed what we knew about Link (the hero) and modeled the party games after a Hero of Hyrule Training Session. We shot nerf arrows through targets (thanks to my Dad for holding them...and taking more than a few arrows to various body regions), threw boomerangs to see how far they could go (marking spots with pieces of the triforce with the boys names on them), used slingshots to take out the gold skulltulas (taped to balloons of different heights), fought deku babas with swords (blue & purple balloons of different heights with chompy mouths taped onto them...thanks to my mom for jumping in and blowing up more when they started popping) and broke pots (carried waterballoons over our heads and popped them on the ground).

We gave the kids rupees based on how well they did at the games and then they were able to buy prizes at the Hyrule Market (boxes of dollar store junk on the middle table). They were all excited to have their chance to buy but I realized I should have gotten more squirt guns and potty putty (you don't want to know).

We ate hoagies & chips, drank soda and ate cake (Hylian Shield shaped...that's the shield Link uses). We opened presents and then let the kids run around, replay whatever games they wanted to (bow & arrow was the biggest hit) and play with their prizes.

We hit a few snags along the way (100 degree weather, extra friends, razor sharp unmowed grass that kept popping the balloons, my inability to yell louder than 14 8-10 year olds) but with all the hard work from my mom & dad (thank heavens they were there!), Savannah & Scout (I owe them an ice cream cone!), Shannon & Wyatt's Moms (I can't remember their names but they were GREAT!), and the back breaking labor of Troy I think the kids all had a good time.

He's TEN!

Random finally hit double digits. Much to our chagrin. It gets harder and harder to convince ourselves we're still 22 when he keeps getting older!

Random had a spectacular day. He requested scrambled eggs, sausage, muffins and chocolate milk for breakfast. We brought donuts and rootbeer to his classroom for a special treat. Troy kidnapped him and took him to lunch at Chili's and then out to see Nim's Island. They went over to the Lego Store, picked up their first Lego Mindstorm's kit and wandered for a little bit around Oregon Scientific before coming home.

We went to the store and had a hotly contested scavenger hunt/race to pick up the last few items for our picnic dinner. We drove out to Champoeg park for some flame-broiled burgers, potato salad and a few presents. While we were there we were harassed by a couple of squirrels and had a lot of fun chasing them off. Random got a nerf gun, a scooter and of course, a helmet. Champoeg was the perfect place for skooter-izing with its paved pathways and huge empty parking lots. After dinner and clean-up we went back home for the last few presents and Triforce cake (that's from The Legend of Zelda for you video game noobs). Troy and Random spent a little time building a basic robot with their Mindstorm kit and Random got to play a little of his new Pokemon DS game before bed.

When we were out at the park Random took the camera around and shot a lot of really great pictures. The images in the slideshow (without him in it) are mostly his work. Troy and I were impressed with his natural sense of composition.

Savannah turned 8!

We asked her not to, warned her that it would only make us seem older, but she did it anyway. Savannah turned 8! We had a fun family party on her birthday with presents and her favorite dinner...rolls and fried ham. YUMMM.

She had a tea party with her friends on the following Saturday. They dressed up like princesses, painted their own tea cups and played a life sized version of Pretty Pretty Princess. Everybody had a smashing time and went home with their own personalized tea cup.

Later that evening Grandma, Grandpa, Emily, Jerred and Brooklyn came down and we all headed out to the Lake Oswego Stake Center. Savannah was baptized and we are all very proud of her decision. She has a strong testimony of Jesus Christ and has already shown how stalwart she is and chooses the right most of the time.

Grandma and Emily surprised Savannah with a brand new beautiful custom-made white dress that Grandma sewed in one day, shoes and accessories. She looked like like an angel. The next day in church she was called up to the front. We had gotten to church late so we sat in the back. Our ward is really big so we actually have 3 overflows and we were technically in the gym. She walked past the entire ward...it took over a minute to get up there. In the hallways people stopped me again and again to tell me how angellic she looked.

We had a family birthday party for her after we were home from the baptism (and everyone was out of their fancy clothes). We had a blue dragon cake and Grandma and Grandpa took us out to Red Robin.

Cakez

I've had cake conversations lately and I thought I'd dig around on the computer and see if I had any cake pictures. Turns out I did and when I remembered all the work that went into them I decided I should post them. I couldn't find all the pictures and I'm sure some of them are sitting in our storage unit in Michigan on a medium we used back in ancient times called "film."

I'm not a pro at the whole cake scene but it didn't seem like Rocket Surgery to me and I decided that it was something I could figure out. I still can't do what they do in the shops but as long as I avoid rectangles and any attempt at "smoothness" I think I'm ok. HA!

Cakes were really important to the formation of the Gomms. I made a cake for Troy's birthday when we were dating and I think that was the thing that clinched the deal :-P So here are the pictures of the cakes I could find.

The butterfly cake is from Scout's first birthday. The woven part is fondant, the rest was me playing around with different sized tips on a frosting squisher thing I had just gotten. That cake was a pain in the bum.

The soccer balls were from Kevin and Natalie's (my sister Sarah's twins) 5th birthday. I had gotten a new ball shaped cake pan but it didn't seem like enough cake so I made the cone too...mmm cake.

The Care Bear cake was from Savannah's 5th birthday. It's not that great except that it's tiny (about 6 inches) and I made one for all the kids at the party to go along with the Build-A-Bear workshop trip.


















The castle cake is already on our blog in the post about Scout's birthday but I figure if you're bored enough to read our blog you won't mind seeing a cake twice. For this one I made almost 300 tiny tiny fondant flowers and enlisted the help of my mom and dad.

Scout's 4th Birthday

August 8, 2007 Scout turned 4 years old! We celebrated in our little apartment in Oregon on Wednesday and that weekend drove up to Washington to visit Grandma and Grandpa Bryan and have a barbecue.

Mom (Diane, Grandma, Illustrious Goddess of Puyallup) and I (Amanda) worked long and got really really sticky making the cake (yep that Fairy-Tale Castle is the cake). We had Balloons (pink), table cloths (pink), streamers (pink), plates (pink) and a My Little Pony Pinata (duh...PINK). Princess Scout was in heaven!

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa; Opah and Gigi; Emily, Shannon, Jerred and Brooklyn; Margaret (still pregnant... welcome baby Xander!) and Mike; Random and Savannah for coming, eating, bringing presents but most of all laughing and talking. The Gomms had a great time!