Dan's Birthday

This is why I refer to the time from mid-October through mid-January as the "Grand Celebratory Season": In addition to the holidays everyone else enjoys (or endures), we have 6 kids' birthdays (and both mine and my dearly beloved's, which we studiously ignore). #1 was my little guy's birthday. Dan is #2 in the list of fun and games here in our little corner of the world.

You may remember that a year or 2 ago, we got Dan a spare wheel for his '94 Caddy. All cars for at least the last quarter century have come with those absurd miniature spare tires, which are rated for a good 50 miles travel. This was a good excuse for a present, and it doubled as a seat.

This year, he wanted brakes for his pickup truck. That's easy to wrap: a check in a box.

His cake commemorated the truck. It was a buttermilk chocolate cake. It was gone in under an hour.
And this is how Thor spent the birthday party. I have stomped on the kids' habit of letting him shred wrapping paper and leave me a mess, so he slept upside down, all teeth showing.

And now, life is quiet, for the next 3 weeks.