Thomas' Birthday!

This is Emily writing for Mom. She's going out of town this afternoon and is busy packing, so she asked me to write about Thomas' birthday. Despite his chicken pox, we celebrated yesterday. He is ten years old!



Since she is rowing The Salamander Room, Mom decided to have a surprise salamander theme for the birthday. Above is a clay salamander that Thomas made from Model Magic. The spots are made from peppercorns. Below are pictures of him opening his gifts and posing with his cake. So far, he has received a sleeping bag from Katie, a compass/thermometer/whistle/magnifying glass gadget from Abby, a set of toy cars which change colors when submerged in water (also from Abby), a handy manual on backpacking and hiking from Granny, and lots of birthday cards and money.




The cake, primarily made by Rachel, was Thomas' favorite flavor: chocolate. She made the batter and the icing from scratch. Then she whipped up some marshmallow fondant and colored it various shades of green. Anna and I helped her cut it out into leaf shapes, with which we covered the cake. The finishing touch was two wooden cutouts of a lizard and a snake. We set them on top of the layer of leaves, as though they were on a real forest floor. It turned out so cute!