a good weekend

We've had a GREAT weekend so far. Yesterday was Jonah's Half Birthday, so we thawed out part of his leftover birthday cake (we still have the entire white chocolate top tier left... this was the leftover vanilla layer), and had an impromptu pizza/cake dinner with our neighbors.

They live two houses behind us, and have two girls, four and 14 months. Their sweet mommy brought them over to play yesterday and, honestly, it was the best half birthday present Jonah could have gotten. He was so excited he just yelled and yelled, and they were so great playing with him. This is Emma. I wanted a better photo, but every time I tried to get them together, my camera wouldn't snap (curse you D40, curse you), and Emma would take off.

Today we had arranged for Mom to watch Jonah so we could go look at some used vans. And guess what? We got one of THESE!

Yep, a Sienna! I didn't think there was any way we could afford a Sienna, but it's an '07, and we got an awesome deal. And they gave us a better interest rate than we had found on our own and way more for our trade-in than I thought we'd get.

It was a comparable price for an 09 Dodge Caravan with about 30,000 miles or the 07 Sienna with 50,000 miles. Ultimately, we chose Toyota over Dodge, and I'm glad we did. I don't think we could have gotten a better deal. I'm so incredibly thankful. Before we went in, I prayed something like, "God, please help us not be idiots and give us a salesman that isn't a schmuck." I know. I'm an excellent pray-er. But honestly, all joking aside, I really do feel like God was in this. Our salesman, Cosme, was from Ecuador and has only been here for two years. We spoke in Spanish just as much as we did English. He was so wonderful and when we told him about Jonah, he explained that he knew how we felt because he has a son with CP. I really do feel like he got it. We didn't feel pressured and stood our ground about the price we needed, and I'm just really happy with how it all turned out.

Jonah, meet Sienna. Sienna, Jonah.

And our two requirements for the van:

Rear air controls.

And stow n' go seats. (I was too lazy to take the strollers out to show them stowing and going.)

Matt and I currently have to wear jackets in the car because we have to keep the air on full blast for it to reach Jonah, so I'm so happy about rear air conditioning. Now he can be plenty cool enough, and I won't have to shave my legs every other hour. Ladies, you know what I'm talking about. AND the van has a luggage rack, so we can still use our canvas roof top carrier when we travel. The captain seats don't stow, but they roll forward (back to back with the front seats), so we will have SO. MUCH. SPACE. And we need it so badly. It's going to be a dream compared to how we've had to travel in the past.

And to top it all off, now we're JUST THIS COOL.

CAN YOU EVEN HANDLE IT?

jonah's amazing cake

UPDATE: Here is the link to Janel's Cake Fan Page (Crave Confections) on Facebook. Check it out! She's posted lots of photos of other great cakes she's done. I still like Jonah's the best though. I could be slightly partial.

So the cake...

I have been meaning to post this forever, but just hadn't gotten around to it.

Janel is a bloggy/EB friend that I "met" after she found my blog shortly after Jonah was born. I had never even met her in person until the day before Jonah's birthday. She has RDEB, but is married, in her thirties, and has a sweet little girl!

She says she bakes and decorates cakes for a hobby, but she is AMAZING. Janel and her family drove all the way up for Jonah's birthday from FLORIDA, and Janel made this beautiful, wonderful, perfect cake for free. Did I mention she's amazing???

Almost there.

Check out the detail.

The Final Masterpiece.

The bottom layer was vanilla cake with buttercream icing, the animal layer was chocolate with buttercream icing, the games layer was carrot cake with white chocolate cream cheese icing, and the top layer was white chocolate with white chocolate cream cheese icing. The whole thing was covered in fondant, and everything was edible.

Pretty incredible, huh? 

Jonah checking it out.

Jonah's Smash Cake (which he barely touched... cake is, after all, a solid.)

"Ready for my cake, Mom."

Jonah looking like he was trying to blow, but really just reacting to me blowing in his face.

Only a small portion of the Paparazzi.

It was almost too pretty to cut, but we quickly got over it.

So, thank you, Janel. What a beautiful gift. It was unforgettable. Thank you so much for blessing our family. We're so glad to now call you a "real life" friend. Hope to see you again very soon. (And by the way, Matt said it was the best carrot cake he'd ever had. And he does NOT play around when it comes to dessert.)