Friday, May 8, 2009

A birthday for Biju

Another birthday has come and gone for Biju. We kept it simple, as we usually do with most birthdays. In the morning, Biju called his parents and brother back in India and he and Ajay had a nice conversation.

Biju chose to go to an Indian restaurant for his birthday meal (I think I enjoyed it more than he did and I was very pleased that both kids ate enough there to consider it their lunch). When we got back home, Ajay helped me make a cake (while both Biju and Alex took a nice long afternoon nap!). I thought I'd butchered the frosting (it was the egg white kind that you had to cook in a double boiler), but it all worked out in the end. Ajay was beside himself with excitement to put the sprinkles on.













Here is the finished product, with Biju's gifts "wrapped" up in handkerchiefs. The paper was a note Ajay had written to Biju - it says Happy Birthday Daddy (I couldn't find his markers or crayons, so he had to write it in a lime-green highlighter).













Alex wasn't able to help with the cake making but he discovered he enjoys standing on Ajay's stepstool.


















I also worked on making my own wash for the diapers. It consisted of 1 cup of washing soda, 1 cup of Borax and 1 cup of Oxyclean Free. I mixed it up and put it into an old calcium supplement bottle. This wash, which uses 4 Tbls. per load, does not have any detergent in the recipe so I'm hoping it gets the diapers clean enough. I've since done one load and I added a few drops of Tea Tree Oil as an antibacterial. I didn't look during the final rinse, but I'm hoping there weren't any bubbles. Out of the dryer they smell and look quite fresh so lets all cross fingers that this will be the end of my laundering woes! (I've also added a couple of tablespoons to each regular load of laundry to help boost the homemade detergent)

1 comment:

Molly said...

You'll have to let me know how it goes! I'm having a terrible time with my new HE washer - lots of diaper rashes over here!