I try to not get all teary about how my little guy is turning 9.
But NINE.
WOW.
He is sometimes a teeny bit sad his birthday is the only one in our home in the winter. I remind him of how cool it is to have the exact same birthdy as Auntie Jenn – and that usually cheers him up as she is way cool.
Another reason that it’s hard to have a birthday in the winter for him is that he loves soccer, and would love to have a soccer game for his celebration. This year, he decided that even though hockey is not his favorite sport, he still enjoys playing, so a street hockey game would be fun.
We planned to play in our back alley and he would also invite his Dad so there would be two adults – one per team (realistically no one wants me as the adult on the team – so his Dad and Rob are good picks. I just take the photos:)). He made up the teams (they were a little bit unmatched – as he picked his older brothers to be on his team – but whatever – his party):
We then we decided we would make some jerseys for the players on each team.
If we were rich, we would have ordered some real jerseys for each player. But, we aren’t, so we found some cool websites where you can order blank jerseys – that have all the right colours and stripes and you just have to print their names on them. But since we aren’t even rich enough to do that, we bought some red and blue tshirts and then used some “DUCK” tape (that’s really what is was called) and made stripes and numbers. We were trying to make it look a little like the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings.
They turned out pretty good. Rob and I made them with only minor complaints of backaches and moaning how we decided to do thin stripes – which involved some exacto kniving. We quickly decided the numbers had to be easily made with lines – no cirles.
The only real glitch was the tape around the bottom of the shirt. It meant that the shirt no longer had any stretch. So it was a little tight for Rob and Josh’s Dad. Suck it up boys. It’s as good as it gets. (Oh ya, and don’t try to wash them:)
Josh loved them and the other kids did too – so that is what mattered.
As for the cake, we had to work soccer back in somehow, so Rob came up with a great idea of making a soccer field cake. I made an icecream cake (it’s the popular birthday cake choice around here) with mint chocolate chip icecream, and then we decorated it.
Ok. Rob came up with most of the ideas. And then did most of the decorating. But I suggested the Kitkats for the nets (but then he took the idea and perfected it). I guess that means we are a good cake decorating team:)
Josh was really happy with how it turned out!
The party itself was a great hit:
Now a couple more days until the real day when my little man turns 9!!
