Patrick turns fourteen!

Patrick's birthday fell on a Monday this year, and his party was scheduled for the following Saturday.  However, Patrick requested a "family birthday" at home on his actual birthday.  Alina accused him of cleverly trying to hustle an extra birthday cake!

However, if this was Patrick's diabolical plan, he was soon foiled.  Alina knew what his favorite cake was, so she found a recipe to try to make his strawberry cake a bit special this time, only to find out that Patrick found bits of actual strawberries in his cake "slimy" and "gross".

This is, of course, very good news for the pastry chef, who can now resort to boxed cake mixes without compunction!

At any rate, we found that we had completely misjudged Patrick's motives.  He wasn't being motivated by cake greed.  He wanted to start on his PRESENTS!

Hays High School had seen fit to outfit all of its students with their own personal laptop computers for the year.  As such, Patrick was awarded a Jansport Laptop Specific backpack to transport his computer in cushiony comfort for the year.

Click to see Patrick's birthday party, complete with all of his nearest and dearest friends.