FUN FRIDAY--- It's a birthday post!!

Turning 8 is really GRR-EIGHT......for anyone except the mom.

My baby. I should have put her in a box when I had the chance.

This morning before school, the boys and I celebrated her birthday, as we do everyones, with presents, candles, song and dance. Basically, I'm the only one dancing, and we all sing monotone because it's early. We aren't real big "morning people" at our house.

Of course I set them up for a very productive day of higher learning with this breakfast of choice: toaster strudel with icing, strawberry cake, some trix pebbles thrown in for color, and a glass of leftover punch (made by their Granny, who makes the best punch around, which consists of two ingredients--sugar and more sugar, or, Mt. Dew and pineapple juice).

Hey, if you can't go to school on your birthday with a sugar rush, then really, what's the point?

The state laws have it set up now that you can't just show up with a 24 pack of frosted, sprinkled, chocolate laced cupcakes, a big iced chocolate chip cookie, and bags of candy to give your classmates..... Something about obesity rising in America's youth, and that we should make an attempt to offer a more nutritious sampling at school...blah, blah, blah!!

A few years ago, I thought about protesting. I was going to call our group the "Cupcake Brigade". But then I decided that there were more important issues that needed to be addressed first. Like maybe adding into the curriculum week long beach field trips twice a year, opting for one of those mist sprayer thingys on the playground for when it gets so hot (if we aren't at the beach already for a field trip), and maybe even pushing the school year to not start until after Labor Day for a change....you know so we could go to the beach, again...etc.etc.etc.

But instead, I just ate the cupcakes at home. And decided to comply with their stupid regulations by sending other snacks to school for birthday celebrations. My kids always ask for the same thing, a box of Duncan Hines strawberry cake mix, made into cupcakes, with no icing. And usually a fruit dip, because we are complete HEALTH nuts as witnessed by punch for breakfast (it did have pineapple juice).

TB skipped up the sidewalk this morning carrying her basket of treats. She looked just like Little Red Riding Hood.....without the red cape, and she wasn't going to see grandmother, and there was no big bad wolf (unless you count her brothers). But she did enter wth a basket of goodies, state approved goodies.

Red's basket full of sweets would have never met the nutrition guidelines of today and sadly, she would have never made it past the threshold of the elementary doors. I'm not completely sure on the amount of sugar in Trix cereal, but it made the treat bags look much better, so I threw in about 21 pellets...and assumed that it could be counted as a fruit. They do come in lemon, strawberry, lime and orange flavors.

• Happy Birthday, you precious little girl! We are blessed to have you in our life.