34 and 1

My brain is tired. I promised myself that I would study every day starting this week for 2-4 hours a day for the AFOQT. And I successfully studied for 3 hours today. But now my brain and my eyes are killing me because I tore my last pair of contact lenses on Friday. And my glasses are about two prescriptions behind. Apparently, my prescription expired in April, so I have to get an exam before I can order more contacts. Have you tried to schedule an eye exam recently? It's ridiculously booked...even in a larger city an hour away. The soonest appointment I could book is on August 3rd. And do you know how much it's going to cost?!? Let me just say...thank goodness for parents that care or I would be part-blind for a long time.

But, on to the happy things. Last week was H's and Little Man's birthdays. For H's 34th, we visited the NM Museum of Space History. It is in the little town that we are staying in and I have never been there. Mister was really excited about it. Everyone enjoyed it. FYI, at the museum, HAM, the first astrochimp, is buried under the American flag. There are also a lot of different rockets and spaceships components on display. We all stood in front of two separate, large satellite dishes. If you whisper into one, you could hear it in the other as if the person is talking loudly right next to you. It was really awesome. Later, we had dinner with my family and H ordered some Chinese that he likes. I usually make a cake for the birthdays, but I thought it might be hard to find one H would like to eat that doesn't have eggs, milk, butter, or oil (part of his diet). I'm sure you can see the dilemma.

The next day was Little Man's bday. He woke up in the morning and had a huge smile on his face. I sang him "Happy Birthday" and couldn't believe that my little guy was one year old already. Later, we had a party with a bunch of family over. We had bbq, potato salad, chips, dip, cake and ice cream. I was going to make the large cake, some cupcakes, and a mini-cake just for LM. However, halfway through decorating the large cake, I realized that the hot NM weather was not conducive to successful cake-decorating. The cake was too sticky, the icing was melting and the layers kept sliding. So, after creating a large crack in the cake, I gave up. We bought a cake for everyone else and I had better luck with the mini-cake. So, if you ever find yourself baking and decorating a cake in NM on a hot day, here are the instructions:

1. After baking cake, stick in freezer to chill.
2. After chilled, spread icing between layers, then stick back in freezer to chill icing.
3. After chilled, spread remaining icing all over cake. Stick back in freezer to chill whole thing.
4. After chilled, decorate quickly. Then stick in fridge until ready to serve.

Now, I know why Tiny's cake did the same thing on her first bday. A castle cake doesn't look quite right when it's turrets are sliding sideways.

LM really dug into the cake and ate a lot of his lunch. He got a lot of new clothes and toys. Three gifts into it, he just wanted to sit and play with the new toys. He partied and played and shared with the other babies. And at the end of the day, he was pooped. He had a good birthday. I will post the pics in the next one for you to enjoy.