Our Baker's Dozenth Birthday

{A} turned 12 years old on Sunday. Her birthday morning started out as all birthday mornings do around here…..with the birthday pancakes, of course.  Daddy always makes birthday number pancakes, usually by cutting out the numbers.   But this time he surprised us all, with yet another twist of his pancake creativity.

If you’d like to use this idea for a special birthday celebration in your own family sometime, how he did this is too easy to believe.  He just took a sharp razor, and very gently cut the numbers through just the very, very top of the pancake, and peeled off the surface of the numbers.  That’s it!! Easy.

If you’re wondering wondering, once in awhile our kids have butter and syrup on their pancakes. But most times they love just eating them with strawberry yogurt.

I remember the night of laboring with {A} very clearly.  Getting to the hospital, through the fireworks traffic was no small task.  Of course, being a first time mother, panting through what sure felt like intense contractions to me, I was sure she was coming out any second. I always laugh at that memory, as I learned with the passing of time, that I wasn’t feeling much of anything yet, compared to what was coming! One LONG night of labor, with contractions that intensified and multiplied by the hour! A pure, natural, drug-free labor rewarded me well at 10:08 a.m. , with the most beautiful and sweetest little face I had ever seen in my life.

She truly kick-started our journey of parenthood that day, and we could never have imagined the ride she would take us on.  The transformation of watching her grow, learn, grow, shine, grow, create, grow, give, grow, dream, grow, plan….and grow some more, has been amazing to witness.  She’s a tad taller than I am already!

{A} truly is a dreamer.  She plans out her life, in detail, cultivates her skills almost daily, and those dreams and plans grow all of the time.   One of her many dreams, is to own a lot of land, to run her very own forest animals sanctuary.  It’s not in the least bit difficult to imagine, if you’ve ever seen her work with chipmunks.  It baffles people. I’ve got so much to share on that topic coming up very soon, hopefully.

But yet another dream of hers, is to open a bakery.  After, of course, culinary school,  and many business courses. (Not to mention the further education she’ll need for her other dreams and plans. : )   She is baking in our kitchen way too often, and I’m telling you,  it’s not jiving with my clothing sizes!  But oohhhh….. she is such a wonderful baker! She loves to research recipes, experiment with them and put her own twist on them to make it more her own. She has been collecting recipes and writing a cookbook in her laptop computer for probably a year now.  She is also a HUGE fan of Bakerella…..and asks if there is a new post on a daily basis.

So it was easy to figure out the kinds of things I knew she would be thrilled with to receive as surprises on her birthday…..

Baking cookbooks…….

and most anything……

…and everything…..

…to do with BAKING!!

She was really excited to see the cake decorating tips set!  That’ll take some practicing for sure!  (Oh darn….what ever will we do with all of those cupcakes!!  We just love cupcakes. And her Daddy really-(really)-loves-cake!)

I found some really fabulous baking cookbooks at the book store, on the discount shelves!  I was thrilled with that!  I actually went in to see if I could find a copy of Black Beauty, and {O} spotted and suggested the cookbooks!  What a great idea that little one had! Just beautiful books.

This one, above,  has a great section in the beginning on all kinds of bake ware information.  Photos of what various pans or tools look like, what they are called, and what they are used for.  Then there is also photo-illustrated examples  of various baked goods on ‘what went wrong’.  These display common mistakes with baking, what they look like, and how to avoid them next time.  Very educational for the baker enthusiast!

This is a great book too!!

She has just been pouring over these cookbooks since Sunday, and has even let the little ones join her in reading about them, deciding which ones look extra good, and which items to try and bake first.

Despite all of the baking that goes on, we are a pretty health-conscious family.  (It’s true!) Even {A} is always checking the amounts and kinds of fat involved, and how many grams of sugar.  We don’t eat much processed food at all, and really attempt to have a healthy daily diet.  Thankfully, the kids are all great eaters, and have never been especially picky.  But I must admit.  The more {A} has gotten into baking, the more goodies we’ve all been eating.  Not every day by any means.  But, more than we ever used to.

We all always choose what kind of cake we want on our birthday, and she did the same this year.  So it’s probably no surprise, she insisted on baking her own cake, herself.

For once, it wasn’t actually from scratch, but I was pleased with what she chose:  Duncan Hines Blueberry Streusel cake.  Made with whole wheat!  It actually tasted wholesome and healthy.  It was very good.  And as of today, it’s GONE.

Who knows if {A} will truly open a bakery one day.  I don’t think it’s really a matter of changing her mind.  It’s more….the number of ambitions that she has.  There’s no doubt that she is really passionate about anything she is interested in.  She goes above and beyond delving into anything that tickle her fancy.  So I’m not sure how she’ll ever do it all….knowing that she is probably  not even done discovering her passions.    But whatever she decided to do, we know she’ll succeed, and we know she’ll be happy  She just has a light about her, that I can’t imagine will ever go out.  I think part of it comes from her deep, spiritual faith, that is amazing at her age.  It’s certainly the core of who she is, and maybe that’s where that light comes from.  Whatever it is, I just pray she keeps on shining.   And may that light ALWAYS be BRIGHT and HOT enough, to keep baking  some goodies  for us now and then!    : )   That would be SWEEEEET!

Happy Birthday, Darlin’!   Shine On!!

So on birthdays in our family, no one ever works or has school, and we spend the day together doing something fun together, per request of the birthday person (or people, in the case of the triplets. lol).  This birthday just happened to land on a Sunday.  We also always have (number) pancakes, and cake of choice.

So our question to you is:  Do you have any birthday traditions in your family?  If so, what are they?