Matt Enters His Mid-Thirties

As one gets older, there seems to be less and less of a celebration, so there's really not much to report about Matt's birthday, but since I love to make cakes, I have to at least document that endeavor.

One of Matt's favorite dinners is beef roast and veggies in the crockpot, so I tried to deliver. A few things went wrong. I had never heard of the roast they had at the store. You'd be surprised the number of things that are difficult to understand even though everyone is still speaking English. I made my best guess and brought it home. When I was preparing the seasonings, I realized that the Worcestershire sauce I had was not gluten free and I couldn't use it if I was going to eat the meal. The whole thing took much longer to cook than I expected as well, and without the sauce, it tasted wrong. It was just a sad, sad meal and I felt like crying. Matt, as always, said it was fine and tasted good. His mother raised him right, especially when it comes to not being fussy about food. He'll eat anything I make and be grateful, but it was just awful that it turned out to be a failure of a meal on his birthday.

I did, however, do my best to make a nice "cake." Cake is not Matt's favorite dessert. He much prefers cookies. So for the past couple of years, I have made cakes out of cookie dough. This time, I did a double-layer cookie cake using two springform pans. I put nutella between the layers and on top. I asked the boys what I should put on top, thinking they would pick a superhero or a video game character, but Scott said, "You should draw a picture of Daddy catching a falling star." I thought that was quite specific and decided to go with it. Unfortunately, I lost my small piping tip and it came out quite rough. It was fun, though, to see Matt dipping his slice of double layer cookie cake into a glass of milk and taking a bite.

I had the boys pick out presents at the Warehouse, which is kind of like what Wal-Mart used to be in the 80s. They picked out a Star Wars Rebels ball, bubble wands, a mash-up version of Star-Lord, and a couple of books. Pretty much everything a 34-year-old man could want. We did our best with limited experience shopping in New Zealand (aka no Amazon.com). Let's face it, though, when Matt wants something, he usually buys it, even if it's not his birthday or Christmas, so what can we do?

Happy Birthday Matt! We love you for everything you do and all that you are to our little family.