Kirby has now been GRUMPing at me for seven whole years! It seems like just yesterday that a tiny confused hatchling showed up on my doorstep in a FedEx box!
Birthday boy and his BFF!
To mark this special occasion, I made Kirby a ginormous seven-layer birthday cake with his favorite foods: Two layers each of radicchio, watermelon, and apple, plus a layer of frilly kale and freshly picked homegrown clover garnishes!
Birthday cake close-up!
I freehanded the “7” out of watermelon and added a “base” of sorts to keep it upright in the topmost layer of apple:
Watermelon 7 ready to be nommed!
Note for next year: Putting Kirby’s cake on a platform is not a good idea. The video actually starts with Kirby’s third time walking up to his cake…the first two times, he completely missed it because it was above eye level!
The upside down plate platform looks nice at least?
Enthusiastic CHOMPing once cake was sighted!
A more accurate snapshot of Kirby’s cake CHOMPing: He had eyes for only the radicchio for almost the whole time!
Of course, the birthday tort got lots of presents to shellebrate!
A UV index radiometer from me…
Kirby was decidedly less excited about this than I was.
From Canadian friends Waffles & co., a dino-mite card:
Glittery AND rainbow colored!
…and the coziest present: A tiny, perfectly Kirby-sized tent!
Cutest camper ever!
Kirby needs some help getting in and out, but he loves chilling inside!
Japanese friends Tito, Nico, Joa, and their humom anne-fine somehow outdid themselves yet again and sent Kirby the cutest card ever!
Officially, the turtle is holding a candle, but I thought it was a crochet hook and I’m sticking with that!
The cutest pop-up card ever, or the cutest pop-up card ever?
Lots more photos of Kirby’s seventh birthday shellebration over here on our Tumblr, and under the #KirbyChompsSeven hashtag on Facebook and Instagram!
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I never got around to posting about Kirby’s birthday last year, so belatedly, here are videos and a few of my favorite photos from his sixth birthday!
“6” is one of the few bottom-heavy numbers, so I took full advantage and made Kirby a big number 6 cake out of watermelon!
Cake glamour shots because this cake turned out much nicer looker than I expected!
Please admire these artfully placed wildflowers.
While out looking for dandelion and clover flowers, I discovered a new edible wildflower for Kirby: Wild chicory! The flowers are big and such a pretty blue! (But be forewarned: If you pick wild chicory flowers and put in them in water, the blue bleaches shockingly fast and you will be left with limp and colorless translucent petals! I actually had to pick a second batch of wild chicory flowers after learning this lesson the hard way with my first batch…)
The dandelions weren’t great last year, but look at how pretty those wild chicory flowers are! (If you look carefully, you can see the bottom chicory flower already starting to bleach from being on the watermelon.)
The “6” is in font Optima, bold, size 470!
Ready for cutting with a simple paring knife.
One more cake glamour shot, this time with Brunhilda the dino!
Of course, Kirby went for the flowers first!
Excited for his annual watermelon treat!
MAXIMUM CHOMP EXCITEMENT!
Kirby’s Japanese friends anne-fine did not disappoint with an amazing box of birthday goodies in the mail! From the birthday box itself:
Rainbow garland!
…which led to this little video:
…to the pop-up birthday card:
The sweetest cupcake delivery!
…to all the goodies inside! My favorite by far:
It’s Kirby’s face!
More Kirby’s face! Which Kirby apparently considers irresistible.
See the rest of Kirby’s fabulous presents and more of his sixth birthday shenanigans over here on our Tumblr, and under the #KirbyChompsSix hashtag on Facebook and Instagram!
the whimsy turtle 