And now he’s four

April 12, 2022

Aero turned four years old on April 3.

I can hardly believe how quickly the time has gone by since that 10# baby boy came into our family. This is Aero at 9 days old.

John wanted to get a Dairy Queen ice cream birthday cake, but they aren’t doing those right now and the prices have become outrageous anyway. So, he asked me if I’d make the cake.

Okay.

And then John said, “It has to be a dinosaur.”

Hmmm. I had to think about that a bit.

I made a Cookie Monster cake for Jeff’s second birthday. And a Ninja Turtle cake for John when he turned twelve. Then a teddy bear cake for the fifth birthday of a friend’s daughter. So, I checked out a few online photos of dinosaur cakes folks had made. Yeah. I can do a dinosaur cake.

I have two 8″ round cake pans that were my mama’s – I used one to make two circle outlines to cut from paper. The dinosaur shape needed to be from only the two pans. It took five circles to get it down right, but I finally had my pattern.

I told John to ask Aero what flavor cake he wanted. The answer was, “Strawberry!” Alrighty.

A green or brown dinosaur? “Green!” I kind of figured that.

And then an hour later … “Aero says he wants the dinosaur to be green AND red.”

Well, gramma aims to please, so I said I’d get it done.

I bought three boxes of Duncan Hines Signature Strawberry cake mix (on sale for $1 each) and two containers of generic vanilla frosting (79¢ each), a “share size” bag of M&M’s ($1), a “share size” bag of Hershey’s Kisses ($2), and borrowed John’s food coloring set. I spent the evening before Aero’s birthday baking the cake layers, and also cupcakes so there would be extra to send home with family for those who wouldn’t be able to make it to Aero’s birthday party.

I must tell you, it’s been a long time since I stayed up that late doing any baking. I was pooped!

And I still had to get up the next morning to cut and fit the dinosaur shape, color the frosting, and decorate all of it before the party at 4:00 … er, I mean before John and Aero had to come get me and Jerry, the cake and cupcakes at 2:45.

First thing I did next morning was cut the dino parts and fit ’em together … with a slight triangular addition in the *ahem* rear area.

Mixed up the green frosting.

And then frosted the dino. This was probably the hardest part because tiny pieces of cake flaked off as I spread the frosting, so I had to keep stopping to correct things. Yeah, I’m one of those perfectionists. But hey, it was for my grandson.

And lastly, the fun part – decorating! Hershey’s Kisses for the spines down his back … brown and red M&M’s for his spots. A tiny bit of black and tinier bit of white for his eye.

Plus, I decorated the cupcakes. The cupcake in the corner all by itself was for Aero’s number four birthday candle. John and Aero picked up me, Jerry, the cake and cupcakes, and our gifts at exactly 2:45 … I had finished everything just five minutes earlier!

We all had a good time visiting. Aero and his sister, Nova, played for a while with the “pin the tail on the dinosaur” game. Then there were other more important things to do.

Aero opened all of his gifts before we did the cake and ice cream. There’s no way you can make a four year old wait very long with all those wrapped packages that are sitting there. Left to right: George (my ex – Jeff/John’s dad), Madison (granddaughter), Andrew (grandson who will be 21 this coming Friday), Kaylee (Andrew’s fiancée) and Nilah (Andrew/Kaylee’s 3-month-old baby girl in her lap), Jerry, and you can just barely see Kara (granddaughter) on the other side of Jerry … in the background at the little table, left to right: Nova (six-year-old step-granddaughter), Elissa (ex-daughter-in-law), Aero and John. Andrew, Madison, and Kara are the children of my other son, Jeff, and his wife/widow, Amanda. Amanda and her fiancé, James couldn’t make it for the party. Yes, several in our family, including me, do not like current photos of ourselves online, which is why I stepped behind everyone for the shot.

Then came time to sing “Happy Birthday” and for Aero to blow out his candle.

He was so excited when he blew out that candle all in one big breath!

(You’ll have to excuse the cement patio blocks and yard of this place John is renting. He and Aero just moved in there back in October [2021] and we haven’t had time to do anything, especially since Spring and warmer weather [har-har] are just barely getting started. I’m really disappointed with the rental management company in that there is so much that needs done to make this place safe, plus it needs a load of maintenance work done. Long story, not for this post.)

Aero had a great time. What four-year-old wouldn’t, right? And by the way, he had a special ice cream request that I helped him talk his dad into … mint-chocolate chip. I don’t care for or even like chocolate, but I do love mint! So that’s what Aero and I had with our cake while everyone else had “birthday cake” ice cream.

Silly boy. That’s my grandson. 😂 💚 🎈 🎁 🎂

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