Lorenzo had his first birthday a couple days ago.

My mom and I made him a cake based on Yo Gabba Gabba characters, which he enjoys watching. I think the parents enjoyed the presentation more than he did, however! But he did like his cupcake. And it was good cake. The downside was, unlike last year when we did a Dora the Explorer cake, I had to be careful about frosting intake and eating cake fragments during the making of the cake. The final product came out nicely. The green "fur" is coconut, and the red dots are those terrible tasting cinnamon thingys. The flavor leeched into the frosting and gave it a mild cinnamon taste, which I did not like. It might be better to use either red M&M's or just make frosting blobs with the frosting gun.

And for reference, here is what the characters look like. We got pretty close, considering our medium was cake. Note we gave Brobee a smile, instead of the frown. And made them both a bit squatter, for more cake. There are gaps between Brobee's arms and body, but the coconut obscures that. In the future, we would probably do better to exaggerate the space, so it frosts better.

And just for reference, because I don't think it is on the site anywhere, here is the Dora The Explorer cake from Mary's birthday party last year.

Less than two weeks before they give me my I-131 radioiodine dose to kill any cells they might have missed. Although I got a clean bill of health this is a standard precaution they take. I get to go to the hospital, get my dose, then stick around until I am not radioactive anymore.

The downside is I am off my thyroid medication, which has given me a low-level headache since Sunday night, AND I am on a low iodine diet. This means no iodized salt, sea salt, seafood (including any calcium supplements, etc that might be made out of sea products), dairy, soy (milk, beans), red dye #3, egg yolks or things made with them, and a few other things. Which really puts a crimp in my diet. But I am eating a lot more fruits and veggies, which I guess is a good thing. I miss my bowl of cereal with banana in the morning, but oatmeal (not the instant kind) with blueberries added in is OK, and I might make a few egg white omelets.

Just 13 more days to go! Good resource for Thyroid Cancer patients, as well as a low iodine cookbook for free download, is at ThyCa.org.