A date with Rhett

This afternoon Lane came home a little early to keep Alexee while Rhett and I went out for a little date, which is always fun. We first went to the pottery place to paint his annual birthday plate. The first two years, I painted a plate for him, but now he likes to paint. I discouraged him from using the Christmas stamps on it, but other than that, I tried to leave the design to him (which is not so easy for me!). He was cute choosing the colors and working on the project. The center of the plate contains his 5 year handprint. I never get tired of seeing the kids' handprints--they're so sweet.

After painting, we went to the grocery store to get the ingredients for his birthday cake. He first wanted a cake with chocolate icing and lots of sprinkles from the Williams-Sonoma Kids Baking Cookbook. It looked simple enough. But then he changed his mind and wanted a Scooby-Doo cake. Hmmm. We'll see what we can come up with. We went to the fruit-snack aisle to look at the Scooby-Doo fruitsnacks box because we couldn't remember what color collar he wears. (Rhett got comfortable while he looked.)
We bought a vanilla cake mix and cream cheese icing for the entire cake. We also got a container of milk chocolate icing to "paint" Scooby and a tube of black gel icing to do his eyes, nose, spots, etc. We stopped by the bakery to ask if they had any Scooby accessories that we might be able to buy individually, and they did (I was surprised). For $4.50 we got a plastic Shaggy & Scooby figurine and a plastic Mystery Machine! As we were walking away from the bakery, he said, "That made me really happy that they had all those Scooby things to choose from." So I was happy, too! :)

P.S. Alexee went to the bathroom in the toilet tonight before her bath! She hasn't done that since December 20th. I cheered and clapped, and she seemed proud of herself. I'm hoping for more success tomorrow.