whats the number of times the letter u appears in:
on sunday, we threw a birthday party for asa (although he won’t officially be one until tomorrow), and it was so. much. fun. it was a dr. seuss themed party, and i had a ton of fun creating a menu of appetizers that were taken from the pages of seuss books. we had thing 1 and thing 2 cupcakes, green eggs and ham (deviled eggs with green filling, and ham rollups), skipper zipp’s chips, fritz and fred food (little smokies and pickles), and multi-colored goldfish, with pink yink drink (pink lemonade) to drink. it was seriously the easiest party ever to plan; all of the foods were super easy to make or buy, and all the decoration i needed were a few signs, some (homemade) truffula trees, and all the dr. seuss books and animals we have already laying around. i did feel badly though; i found the little signs for the foods in google images, and after i saved and printed them i discovered they’re actually from an etsy shop and weren’t “free” as said by the link i found them. so if you want these labels, get them here! they’re super affordable and adorable! my mom and i made the truffula trees from old wrapping paper tubes, two packs of 8-sheet tissue paper, and lots of paint. they were the easiest thing to whip up, and they turned out so, so cute! i would have made more if i hadn’t been feeling sick, and also if we hadn’t run out of hot glue. i also made (with the help of my husband) a cardboard cupcake stand following this tutorial, with circles cut from old cardboard boxes using different-sized bowls as guides. after it was all glued together, i painted the different layers red and blue to match the rest of the decor. it didn’t stick together quite as well as expected, but it wasn’t going to be moved much so i didn’t care. it was also crooked, but the crooked-ness fit the dr seuss-ness of the party, so… that didn’t matter, either! and for his cake, i took some inspiration from this cake, and used… basically a toothpick and my fingers to get the desired effect. all of the cupcakes and the cake were just cake mix and storebought frosting — i didn’t feel well enough to make cake and frosting from scratch, although i would have loved to. we gave asa the top layer of the cake to dive into, and… well, you can see from the pictures (and the video at the end) — he loved it.
he hammed it up the entire time he was eating his cake (after getting over his initial confusion at the happy birthday song), and had no qualms getting as messy as possible. this kid. i know he’s mine, but i think he’s like… the cutest kid on the planet. and then came the gifts! i made a little sign so people would know where to drop them (i always hate walking into a party and not knowing what to do with the gift i brought!) and we got to dig right in. asa hasn’t quite gotten the concept of ripping paper yet, so it took some encouragement for him to actually unwrap things, but he was always happy to see what was in the bags and boxes! he especially loved the gifts that contained clothes — i think because he could pull out item after item, which is his favorite thing to do right now. he will literally empty every box and basket in the house at this stage, for reasons only known in his little baby brain. he also loved pulling tissue paper out of bags, probably for the same reason he likes to empty all containers. and then, the cutest hat ever happened.
my mom made him the most amazing rainbow-colored elf hat, and i cannot get over it! he continually tries to rip it off, but hey. we got one picture!
overall, it was pretty much the perfect party! everything turned out exactly how i’d hoped it would; asa was satisfyingly goofy and messy with his cake, everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves, and we got to visit with a ton of people that we love!
and tomorrow, for real, my first baby will be a full year old. i don’t know how i feel about this.

user
In that passage, there are eighty-nine occurrences of the letter "u."
assistant