Today was my brother's thirteenth birthday! I can't believe he's actually a teenager now!
The kindergarten performance was cute, with all of the classes singing songs about the months in the year, but it was a teensy bit too long. Still, it was hilarious to see my little sisters with their arms up high in the air waving to us between each song. They were pretty funny.
Back home after the show, I had to go full speed ahead to crank out my brother's birthday cake. Normally, I would make a cake at least the day before someone's birthday, but I had work the past two days and didn't have time for it. While my parents offered to just pick up an ice cream cake at the store, I wanted to bake even with the time constraints. By the time the cake had cooled down enough to frost, my sisters were home from school and wanted to "help" with the project. I let them pick frosting colors and stir in the food coloring before I started piping the frosting onto the cake. Once I had all of the frosting in the piping bags, I handed over the bowls to my sisters and let them have at it. They ended up getting frosting all over their mouths, hands, arms, the counter, and even some miscellaneous papers that had been left on the counter earlier. But it wasn't too difficult to clean up after, and at least they had fun.
In the meantime, I loved the way the cake came out. My parents said there was a little too much frosting on it (I apparently didn't make the cake thick enough), but that didn't stop them from enjoying it. Every single person sitting at the table for dessert had a second piece of cake, and everyone seemed to enjoy it, which made me really happy. I'm sure that the leftover pieces of cake will all be gone tomorrow!
After dinner, we had also done presents for my brother. His big present was the trip to Animal Kingdom last week, but he was still getting some surprises today.
Before he knew about the Disney day, my brother had been bugging me to tell him what his surprise was. I kept telling him that it was just underwear, so my mom figured it would be a good idea to mess with him tonight. We gave him a box from an X-box with a package of underwear inside. He went from really excited to really bummed, but he laughed it off. Plus, the real presents made up for the prank afterwards.
I still can't believe that my baby brother is thirteen. I still remember the day that he was placed with us, just a couple of weeks after his second birthday. I used to carry him around so much that my dad would tell me that I was going to have a bad back and he would never be able to walk on his own. We used to say that I was his second mother, back when we thought our ten year age gap was a big deal (doesn't seem so big compared to the sixteen year gap between me and my sisters now). My brother has faced a lot of challenges throughout his life, but I am so proud of the boy, excuse me, teenager that he is becoming.
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Taylor