Birthday Season and Stick Bugs

Today was my son's birthday party with his friends from school, and the end of "birthday season" in our house.  I have discovered the joy of making cakes instead of buying them, so today I had fun decorating his, except that I couldn't find my icing decorating set, so instead ended up improvising with a plastic bug cut on the end, and holding one of the icing tips I did find against it, but it was a real messy job, with icing spilling out on all sides onto my hands.  You wouldn't know it, though, by looking at the cake.  I think it turned out pretty good, don't you?:

My only mistake was that I indicated that we would be done by 7:30 or 8pm, and some parents arrived at 7:30pm, and we were not done.  My husband only arrived about 7:15pm from dropping off my daughter at the church, and I had waited for him to return before opening gifts and serving cake, since I wanted his help with a few photos.  So it was a bit of a rush finishing up, with parents arriving.

In the midst of the chaos, Gary from Cinemazoo arrived (from another birthday party he was entertaining at) to buy a few of my stick bugs for his collection of bugs and creatures which he shares with kids of all ages for educational and entertainment purposes.  I was very impressed with him.  Gary is a true nature enthusiast, and a very patient and kind person.  He graciously gave me some eggs of a leaf insect, which I will be thrilled to add to my stick bug "collection".  He also took the trouble to go back to his van and bring in some huge hissing cockroaches, which I enjoyed holding (the birthday kids all backed away and couldn't be convinced), and this giant stick bug which he preserved (wow, I would have liked to hold it while it was still alive!):

I think it would be a really cool birthday feature, to have Cinemazoo bring in their weird and wonderful creatures, and share them with the kids.   Tonight, one of the little sisters of one of the boys shrieked when she first saw my stick bugs, but after explaining to her that it was a "nice" gentle bug, I convinced her to hold one, and within a few minutes, she had convinced her mom that she wanted to take one home with her, which she did.  I was thrilled to see her transformed from her initial terror, to proudly clutching the little box with her new bug "pet".  What a night!