The Cwazy Pawty

I bought this cake already decorated, but Emma insisted on adding to it. She does not believe that "less is more".

WARM ICE CREAM CAKE AND COLD PIZZA

Those were the featured food items at Herb and Nathaniel's belated but still bodacious 53-19 birthday party. We waited to celebrate it because Nathaniel was in Rome on their real birthday, June 30.

We all got tickled right at the beginning because of Emma's magnificent candle work. She covered the cake in tall, skinny sparkler candles. Then she tried to squeeze in regular short birthday candles. It looked successful until she lit them. The little ones caused the tall ones to melt in the middle and lean over. Herb and Nathaniel were in a panic lest their cherished ice cream cake be covered in wax. Plus, I had taken the advice of the Dairy Queen man and let the cake sit out to thaw for two hours. Very bad idea. Its sides had begun to bulge and sag. All it needed was more heat.

I had wanted to eat pizza first, but Nathaniel insisted that they were cold and needed to be heated. He popped the two boxes in the oven while we did cake, cards, and presents. Suddenly, Herb wrinkled his nose and noticed that smoke was pouring from the oven. Nathaniel had turned the oven on without checking the thermostat, which happened to be set at 400. The little plastic Papa John's dipping sauce containers melted in the boxes, releasing their greasy liquid. We ate the pizza anyway.

How To Double Decorate: Emma divided the cake in half with a green frosting stripe. Then she wrote Herb's initials on one side with "53" and Nathaniel's initials on the other side with "19". She put her mischievous mind to work and came up with the idea of putting shark sprinkles on one side and dolphin sprinkles on the other, confident that it would spark a debate between Herb and Nathaniel about who would eat/kill the other. It worked.

Men--they're so predictable!

Nathaniel is so full of hot air that he does not need to lean close to the candles to blow them out.

I think Herb may have been laughing about the card Emma gave Nathaniel. It had something to do with losing her recipe for birthday cake and needing to substitute cow pies.

Nathaniel wants a jet ski. I found a card that explained how to make a "poor man's jet ski". Inside was a picture of an inner tube and a can of beans.

This brings to a close the Haught family 2010 birthday season. The next one is Emma's 18th coming up in less than six months. How strange that seems!