After the success of Amie's present scavenger hunt, I asked Carson if he wanted to have clues as well, which we all would help him read. No, he said -- he just wanted to run around and find everything. So that's what we did.
Val and I wrapped all his presents in Pixar Cars giftwrap -- a post-Christmas discount find -- which made it easy to spot everything. One, it was thematically consistent, and two, he's got a real eye for the Cars characters. Eventually there were 29 items wrapped and scattered around the homestead. Everyone came home from school pickups -- Val, Amalie, Carson, and special guests Grandma Nana and Grandpa Jack, stopping by as one of their final waystations before returning to Alaska for the first time in three months.
Carson couldn't wait -- but had to. We needed to prep the cameras, settle in, and then spell out The Rules: no opening until everything was found. (This pretty much is the only rule.)
And he was off!
Score!Most gifts were small, being scale model cars, but there were some bigger ones as well. They were up and down the house -- front room, family room, every bedroom, the office, the bathrooms, the kitchen. He was briefly stumped in the master bedroom until he looked up and saw one perched atop the stationary fan. A flip of the switch got that one down quickly.
Minutes later, the total stood at 28 gifts -- Grandma Nana helped double-check the count -- and, since I hadn't written down locations, we all had to poke about for where the last one was. I found it quickly -- tucked inside Carson's bedroom door car holder. And the hoard was completed at last.
Counting the goods.And then the ripping began. Carson went into auto-mode -- tear open paper, briefly observe gift, toss aside and move to the next one. The scrap paper mounted so high that, while picking it up a little later, we found an unwrapped gift mixed into the mess. There were about 20 toy cars in the whole cache, so many that Carson didn't even open all of them until the next day.
Then it was on to the cake. As did Amalie, Carson had specified how he wanted his birthday cake customized. He wanted, of course, a car -- a green car. Having selected a chocolate cake mix, I pre-purchased some 9" round cake pans for the purpose. I baked about 2/3 of the batter in one 9" pan and the rest in a small Pyrex storage bowl, as the special glass can take the heat. This gave me two differently sized circles with which to work.
I cut the big circle in half, tried to trim the top of one half to flatten it, and frosted that semi-circle. The second semi-circle went on top. The smaller circle was cut in half and placed flat sides against the larger semi-circle. The overall effect, with the right amount of squinting, resulted in a highly stylized Volkswagen Beetle (or as we call it, a Jenny Beetle, since the kids' Aunt Jenny owns one). The car was frosted green, the tires a sort of dark gray, and nonpareils were sprinkled to simulate wheels and a windshield. Carson then mentioned he wanted more colors, so I just salt-shakered the entire thing with all the colors we had, and some stuck. It didn't look the greatest, but Carson was quite pleased, and it tasted great nonetheless.
A "Jenny Beetle" cake. Green, of course.After cake, Val asked about another present -- had I forgotten to get it? Oy! No, foolish me, I had stashed it well enough to forget about it. I quickly recovered it and, without bothering to wrap, gave it to Carson as a final bonus gift -- a 100-car Hot Wheels storage case, with wheels and a pull handle for your on-the-go collector. So now he's got even more storage capacity. Alas, if only he would use it, rather than have them loose and all over the place. Such is life at age four.
One last present, a huge car storage case.
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