Birthday cake #1 & a blessedly cheap baby!

Yesterday I truly tried to get the Hawaiian Cake made. The day was crazy. Baby fussing, phone ringing off the hook, Mr. Fix-it coming over to cut holes in the walls. By the time we had time to bake, Princess was totally not interesting and Papa was busy helping Mr. Fix-it, so couldn't hold his screaming son. At 8:45 p.m. we turned off the stove (which had been pre-heating for 4 hours) and I took Princess to the grocery store to choose a little cake before the bakery closed.

Initially she wanted chocolate, but the lure of this white cake with it's bright orange frosting, sprinkles and four plastic sunshine rings was more that she could resist. Our local grocery store, which I love, does all of it's baking from scratch and the cake with light, moist and delicious. Hate the white frosting, but I've never met white bakery frosting I did like, so that was okay. The bakery lady let her choose a color and wrote on it and Princess was in heaven. We also got home from the store with ice cream, strawberry sauce, chocolate sauce, milk & a new matchbox car.

I misjudged the candle supply, so Papa lit a wooden match for the poor child to blow out, we sang fast, opened a few presents and ate our ice cream & cake by 10 p.m. and we all went to bed. This is probably the last year I can get away with such haphazard planning, eh?

~

There were some complications during Princess' birth and even with good insurance it cost us several thousand dollars out of pocket. We aren't complaining - everyone is okay and we know it could have been worse financially and health wise. This time around, the hospital has a new policy and wants $250 upfront before the delivery - if you overpay they'll have the billing department issue a refund. We meant to do it, but kept forgetting. This week we got the bill for Baby Bear and my husband waited a few days to open it, dreading to see the total. When he opened it, he came practically running in to me, waving it and sputtering. When he managed to speak it was to tell me that bill totalled $99.74. Wow. Guess having the baby in one push, 20 minutes after arriving at the hospital and going home less than 24 hours later because everyone is happy and healthy makes a difference! I was feeling guilty about not getting that deposit in (for which they charged us $10.20 - so the delivery really only cost $89.54), but now I feel much better - we saved the billing department the hassle of processing our refund!