A Little Squishy

My son has to be the most tolerant man I know! I told you that yesterday was Princess’s 15th birthday. Because she had a party with her friends on Saturday, we waited to have a family party on Sunday. The Gym Rat had been looking for a reason to have the family over since he moved into his apartment last spring. So today was the day. We celebrated Princess’s birthday at his house.

His apartment is not very big. He shares it with two other guys and for them there is plenty of room. But bringing everyone together for a party was a little crowded. My sweetie and I were there and all twelve of our kids as well as one of Gym Rat’s roommates and Bossy’s family. That made a grand total of 19 people in an 8’ x 15’ room.

We had a nice dinner. The Gym Rat made bbq chicken and alfredo. We brought rolls and zucchini and cake and ice cream. Then we left the little kids watching a movie while the adults moved to the Gym Rat’s bedroom. We were hoping to have our final book club meeting on the book he chose, Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. It was a little squishy! But we managed to put nine people in one small bedroom. (Ten if you count Baby Doll!)

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The discussion got a little heated. Most of us liked the book, but there were a few nay-sayers. After a few minutes, Princess snuck out to watch the movie with the little kids. The meeting broke up shortly afterward and we all agreed it might be a good idea to start the next book. Grandpa got to choose this time (that means he agreed to pay for copies of the book for everyone…). He chose The Help. I’ve heard it’s really good!

Then we pulled out the cake and ice cream. I had struggled with an idea for a cake topper for Princess. Fifteen is such a hard age to find something good, but I finally bought her a package of Lip Smackers lip gloss tubes (kind of like Chapstick). I stuck all 8 of them into the cake and them randomly placed 15 pink candles. We lit the cake and sang. Princess promptly blew out all the candles and then we pulled off the lip gloss and laid them on the counter. I cut the cake into nice little triangles and the kids fought over the ice cream flavors.

Twenty minutes later we were cleaning up and Princess washed the frosting from the lip gloss. As I gathered them up, I noticed that about half of them had melted into their caps from the heat of the candles! When we got home, we tried putting them in hot water to remelt them. That worked for a couple, but not all. So we put the last three into the microwave. After several short cycles in the microwave, they appeared to be mostly normal…until Princess pulled off a lid. The green one was full of tiny round bubbles. It kind of reminded me of being in the Gym Rat’s apartment today. A little squishy and different, but still good.