I made an ice cream cake for Aaron's birthday.  I asked him what kind of cake he wanted.  (Usually he'd ask for a Carvel Fudgie the Whale cake.  But our "local" (about 25 minutes away) Carvel closed. Now the only one in NorCal is in Placerville, 2.5 hours away.  For my birthday we bought a Baskin Robbins cake, but it was small, and $30+.  I read a couple recipes online and decided I could make my own ice cream cake.  I was actually a bit dubious that I would be able to pull it off.

First I gathered my supplies.  I went to Target and bought 2 boxes of chocolate cake mix, two cartons of cookies and cream ice cream, one carton of vanilla, a tub of cool-whip, and two decorating icings.  I wanted extras, in case I made a mistake.  I baked 2 9x9 squares and 1 loaf cake.  I leveled the squares and cut the loaf in half, long-ways. The recipes I read said to slice the ice cream and then cut the cake to fit the slices.  I found that to be stupid.  So I cut the ice cream into 1" slices, and assembled them on the cakes.  I put the big (whole) slices on first, and then cut smaller pieces to fit.  The ice cream was getting melty, so I put the cakes in the freezer.
The recipe said to frost the cake with vanilla ice cream, but I thought cool-whip would be easier.  And it was pretty easy.  No melting, and it filled in the gaps on the side really well.  The downside with cool-whip is that it doesn't freeze super firm, and while that makes for a nice cake, it makes decorating a little tricky, as the icing didn't stick to it well.  I ran out of cool-whip for the loaf, so I used chocolate cream cheese frosting.  That turned out fine, but was a little overly sweet.
It turned out really well, and got a lot of compliments.  I am going to experiment with icing with vanilla.  But it is now my go to birthday cake.  It's easy, but a little labour intensive, but it looks and tastes great.  And the total cost was under $10.

Aaron took the Friday before him birthday off.  We went to the Jelly Belly factory, and my dad came too.  Bertie was really enthralled with some of the robots on the factory floor, but not too interested in the actual candy making process.  It was a nice trip.

I've been having weird insomnia lately.  Either I can't sleep, or I wake up at 2 or 3 and can't go back to sleep (like tonight).  I took half of a Midnite (dissolving melatonin) and fell asleep at 10.  I've been up since about 2 (it's 4 now).  I may talk to my shrink about it, maybe not.  There isn't a whole lot I can do.  I get up at the same time most days, I don't nap, I don't drink too much caffeine, I relax a bedtime.  I suppose I could get Ambien again, but it's kind of a stop-gap.

My tooth has been feeling about the same.  I got my Novamin tooth paste about 5 days ago.  So far it doesn't feel too different.  But I go back to the dentist on Thursday.

Potty training has been going ok.  More of the same, really.  Still not really pooping in the potty, but he's pretty good about peeing.  He doesn't wear diapers or pull ups in the day time.

Misc stuff

What's for dinner this week?
Grilled tuna sandwiches (Monday)
Monte Cristo sandwiches
Frozen pizza (Tuesday)
Bacon and mushroom quiche (tonight)
Baby Back Ribs
Home made banana cake with chocolate buttercream frosting (so good!)

What happened last Saturday?
That was an annoying day.  Aaron went to help his dad work on the brakes for Aaron's truck (which his dad is borrowing).  It should have taken maybe 3 hours, but they worked on it all day, and didn't finish.  That meant I had Bertie on my own all day, so I was a little irritated.  Bertie and I walked to an open house nearby, the outside was unimpressive, but the inside was nice.  But this is the second house I've seen recently with no bathtubs!  I would never buy a house without a tub.  (Also, I just like going to open houses, we're not buying (ever, because we can't afford it)).  After that I left Bertie with his grandma for a couple hours and took a nap.

What's Bertram up to lately?
This kid is into everything!  And is hurting himself a lot.  One day last week he ran over his fingers playing in the dishwasher, had his fingers slammed in the toilet seat, slipped crawling out of the bathroom and bumped his head, then bonked his head in his crib.  He says cracker (for all food, including crackers), dada, and uh oh.  He's working on cat, dog, sticker and truck.  He'll wave bye-bye.  He can (and does) now crawl correctly.  He is pulling up on everything, cruising, and starting to balance just a little.  He likes looking at books, especially if there is a picture of a sun or moon.  He hasn't had much in the way of new food.  But he had spinach for the first time in a while, and he spat it out.  He also did that with mashed potatoes.  But he likes tuna, beets, onions, broccoli and other foods with "loud" flavours. He'll do simple commands: wave, clap, kick, pat, come here.  He loves opening and closing doors, drawers and cabinets, turning on and off the light switch, and playing with trucks (or anything with wheels).

Long day...

• Last night, I made a tofu "meatloaf" so I would have easy lunches and dinners for a few days.  I brought some for lunch today.  Ugh, it was awful!  Probably the worst thing I've ever made.  I hate wasting food, but there was no way it was going to get eaten.  
• Getting up at 5:30 is getting harder, for some reason.  I assumed it would get easier.  But every morning, when the alarm goes off (no matter how early I went to bed), it's always too soon.
• I got stuck on billing stuff this afternoon.  I spent over 2 hours on one EoB, and didn't even finish it.  :sigh:  I left it all open on the computer.  I'm really hoping it doesn't log out over night (it does that some times).
• I was planning on hiking after work, but then realized I was out of my main crohns medicine.  (!)  It's one I take 3 pills, 3 times a day.  I went to grab a new bottle from the cabinet, and it was all gone.  Worse, was that I didn't have any refills left.  So I left a message at the GIs office, and sent him an email.  Fortunately, he was in, and was able to renew it..
• So after work, I drove to Kaiser to pick up the meds and do my blood work.  On the way there, my 12 pack of soda broke open, and they rolled all over the car.  I was worried they would explode, but they didn't (yay).  
• For some reason, it didn't hurt during the blood draw, but now my arm is super bruised, and hurts a lot.