birthday

Today is my friend Jarrod's birthday! Braeden and I made him a cake. It was understated and beautiful, with exactly 23 candles (with no extra to grow on because Braeden had never heard of that tradition. What?), rainbow chip frosting, and funfetti inside. What could be better? Sadly when we took the foil off to light the candles it had sunk down just in the middle and pulled off the "it's y" so it read: "Jarrod: our birthday." Ba haha. Oh well. Good thing I took this picture before we left.

Another fun fact about Jarrod's birthday: I wrapped all of our gifts (Braeden's, Gloria's, and mine) without using any tape and (mostly) recycled or reusable materials! I. Am. A. Nerd. Here Braeden is holding the presents and some games we brought over to play at the party. Gloria's present is the one wrapped in two plastic bags with a twist tie to hold the twisted handles into some kind of puffy bow on top and to attach the receipt tag (NOT the receipt to the gift, because that would be lame). Braeden and I went in on a gift (the big one) and it's wrapped with Kraft paper (they don't use paper grocery bags out here or I would have used one of those) with the sash of a robe for the ribbon. The tag is drawn on with a Sharpie. The smaller package is wrapped in a similar manner. So great!

The party itself was really fun. Jarrod is such a great kid and has a real knack for gathering people together and making them feel included. We ate cake, played games, and had a really good time. Hooray for turning 23, the unstoppable year!