It's Maddy's birthday again. Didn't this just happen? Well, at least it wasn't near as emotional at the whole 13 year old thing. Fourteen is easy.
We went for the usual birthday meal - to T.G.I. Fridays. It is always good to go there. A yummy American-style burger. Their Jack Daniel's sauce..... hmmmm.
And of course there was the usual singing of "Happy Birthday" - they sing it in English in a very stilted manner. It is rather comical. Especially the tambourine.
A little while after we got home, Jake, Paulina and her cousin came over to visit. Jake and Paulina are from Fairfield (CA) but Paulina is Ecuadorian. They came to spend Christmas with her family and we are the beneficiaries of that trip. They even brought us chocolate chips, peanut butter and walnuts!!! You do not understand what a sacrifice of space and weight in their bags that was!
Anyway, they sweetly stopped over and brought Maddy birthday cupcakes. They needed to make sure that she was experiencing the true Ecuadorian birthday custom.
The tradition is smashing birthday cake into the birthday person's face. Jake was much, much too nice, so Paulina - the true Ecuadorian - took over.
Ah, much better.
Thankfully Maddy didn't hear them telling her that the other part of the tradition is that the birthday person, with the messy face, would then go around sharing her messing face by smearing it on other people! She would have relished that portion.
Later it was present time. Mia made Maddy a sweet card. Lucy gave her a jewelry travel case, picked out from my stash of gifts. She wanted to give her about 23 gifts from my stash (that would be more than I have.....) but I only let her choose one.
And while she really really really really wanted a cell phone - and pretty much nothing else - I think she likes the down duvet that she got. She had been asking for one for years.
After dinner (of the many leftovers) Cade had us guess the many facts about various states.... he got info cards about the 50 states in his stocking. He would give us all kinds of hilarious hints for things we didn't know - like state birds, mottos (some weird ones out there) and the like.
And then it was cake time - or brownies, rather. Maddy wanted homemade brownies instead of cake. While normally I love to make nice, fancy birthday cakes, I was quite thrilled to have something non-time consuming and simple to make after the last few days (it was the first time I made that recipe here, and it will need some high-altitude tweaking for next time....).
Four candles for a 14-year-old.
Happy birthday my darling daughter.
I love you.
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