Happy, Happy Birthday, Trace!!!

Trace requested a football cake and I was quite impressed with the way it turned out. I ran out of brown food coloring so it's a bit more tan than I wanted but close enough! This was also the first time I ever added whipped cream to homemade frosting and boy did that make it wonderful!
Opening his gift from the grandparents - a LEGO set. Aunt Chris gave him $25 on a Target card. Rick and I decided a long time ago to get him his own laptop for his 13th birthday. So in early September we went shopping for the one we had decided we wanted only to find it had been discontinued. A week later we were able to buy the floor model - but the keyboard was broken. So off we went to another store that had the only other floor model. THAT one had blown speakers apparently. It was sent in for repair and came back a week later UNrepaired! So back it went and after three weeks we still didn't have it back. After spending all weekend on the phone with managers we were finally informed on Monday that the computer was being junked and our money refunded. Trace's birthday was on Wednesday! Talk about a stressful couple of days! In the end we found a new computer, wrapped it up and set up a scavenger hunt for him to find it. After a lot of laughs over the clues he finally found it. It was a great surprise and he loved it!
For his birthday dinner I made him steak (which he'd been begging for for weeks) and baked beans (which he loves) with salad and parmasean noodles. It tasted great!

So another year has passed and technically we have a teenager in the house now. I'm glad that Trace isn't in a hurry to grow up. No girlfriends, no loud music and no gangs of kids hanging around all the time! It will come - Caden will be 13 in only 3 more years! Until then, I'm going to just enjoy the kid that he is and take each day as it comes!