What-What?! Week of October 31st

Just a few days ago was Saffron's birthday!  She's 14 now, making us parents feel positively ancient.  We had a good day with cake, presents, and lots of video games.  The cake she had is a Swedish princess torte, which was delicious.  We picked up a special musical spinning fireball of death candle thing this year, because it had 14 candles built in!  After blowing out the candles, we discovered that the only way to get it to stop making music was to cut a wire, so we also reenacted all those scenes from movies where you have to figure out which wire to cut, ha!

It really was a bit of a fireball at first!

But after that, it was quite pretty.  The "petals" flip out and then start to spin around slowly.

Yum!

Good haul of presents this year :)

 

This is a pencil case -- Saffron stopped and unzipped ALL FOUR zippers before continuing.

Some colored pencils.  She was delighted :)

Stuffed Isabell plush from Animal Crossing (current favorite video game)

Harry Potter perler bead set

Over the Garden Wall show (dunno very much about this one, just that it's sort of creepy cute, which is right up Saffron's alley)

This is a Hogwarts letter vaccine card holder

Kirby is another favorite video game -- it's been around for decades now and this is a collection of art from the franchise

What-What?! Week of November 1st

 This was a big weekend!  It was both Saffron's birthday on Thursday, and Halloween yesterday.  I took it off as a long weekend, since I haven't taken very much time off this year (go figure).

Saffron turned 13, so she's now a teenager and everything.  Wow.

For her cake, she had a Victoria sandwich cake -- this is a British cake, very similar to a pound cake, with strawberry jam and whipped cream filling.  It was excellent -- very buttery, and a nice change from more conventional American cakes.

(Don't count the number of candles... we might have run out >___> )

Lots of presents!

It was only after she started trying to open presents that I remembered how difficult this unicorn wrapping paper is to tear...  oops

Some manga -- Flying Witch books 7 and 8

And a comic book -- this is a Squirrel Girl comic

This present took two people to open it... it was the birthday of hard to open presents xP

More BOOKS!  Chronicles of Chrestomanci

Harry Potter Lego set -- this was the one she really wanted, the Room of Requirement.  This set's pretty cool, I like some of the mechanics related to how they hide the door.

Oz picked this Harry Potter set out for Saffron --Rise of Voldemort

And Corey picked out the board game Clue -- we actually played this as well, and that was pretty fun

I'm only posting one picture of Halloween -- it's taken me forever to upload / post just these pictures, so I'll be posting more next week.  Here's Osric as Link from Legend of Zelda, Saffron as a Japanese Kappa, and Corwin as Luigi from Super Mario Brothers

What-What?! Week of November 3rd

I have an absolute boat load of pictures from Halloween and Saffron's birthday, so how about we start with Saffron's birthday.  She's now 12!  This year, she asked for a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, decorated like a Poke Ball (from Pokemon).

Lotsa presents!  Found out that my mom and I both got the same wrapping paper, whoops!  (The skull and pumpkins are Halloween decorations, not gifts.)

The husband did the art for this bag -- we pulled out the cards from the game "Sushi Go!", and he based it off of that.  Came out very cute!

We got her a variety of Asian snacks, including Hello Panda, Pocky, mochi, a chocolate drink thing, and some purple yam snack things (which were actually really good).

Osric got her some Pokemon fakey Lego.  These were actually surprisingly nice, much better than the Mega Blocks we'd gotten before, though still not as nice as real Lego.

"Mom!  Let me read it already!"

The folding green was much appreciated -- she's already been to the store to buy herself Harry Potter Lego!  She didn't spend all of it though -- unlike her brothers, she doesn't let it burn a hole in her pocket.

This pencil sharpener is actually a lot of fun to play with. >.>

Poor Saffron spent a lot of time fighting with this wrapping paper -- it's impossible to rip!  I couldn't get it to tear either.  Very pretty, but it's the kind of paper that you shouldn't use a ton of tape on if you want the giftee to be able to open without scissors. D:

Tons of art supplies -- she was really excited about these!

Harry Potter Puzzle that Corey got her.

The husband and I got her a Ravenclaw scarf, complete with embroidered house crest.

Video games, a must-have.  This one is pretty cool because the whole concept is that you create your own levels, and because Oz also has the game, they can share levels with each other.

A cat apron.  So cute!

Crappy picture of her Pokemon -- Eevee and Jigglypuff.  Jigglypuff is a singing Pokemon, so we spent the rest of the weekend listening to children sing"Jiggly-puuuuuff, jiiiiigglleeeeeee~!".