Friday, May 25, 2012

Cub Scout Trophy



Recently I made a cake for George's Cub Scout End of the Year Lunch and Cake Auction Fundraiser.

Hm. No wonder they didn't make signs advertising that. That's a long name.

When I asked Mr. CuriousG what kind of cake he thought I should make, he said "something with an American flag." ( *smile* Making his father proud EVERY DAY. Kong's big on patriotism.)

A little Google search got me so Cub/Boy Scout logos, with one that was flag-esque, and when I asked George what he thought he said, "OH YEEEAAAAHHH!. That's AWESOME!" So, winner winner chicken dinner... I had a fairly simple design. But, I couldn't stop there. Going with a red, white and blue theme, I decided to make red/white/blue layers.

And let me just apologize in advance for the AWFUL pics. I did try to fix them sorta. The tone is so off. This happens with my snappy camera when I'm at my table, no natural light, only those crappy CFL's (which I loathe), a flash and being close up. I probably could have adjusted the white balance or something, but I was skipping church, tending a sick baby, and racing the clock. So forgive me. Your eyes will recover.


Here's the cake put together.


After having used all my (and my friend's) red coloring for a Hello Kitty cake I made a few days prior, I decided to color the cake portion with red koolaid. Yep. Fruit punch. I just added the dry (Fit and Active from Aldi's to be exact) koolaid powder right to the batter (which gave it quite the fruit punch flavor). For the frosting, I just went to my local grocery store bakery where they sell their butter cream frosting for $3.99 / lb. It's pretty hard to get red and blue to be vibrant and truly red or blue without using ten tons of coloring. Black's another color that's worthy of just buying. The white I made myself. What you can't see (and I didn't get to see it either, would love to have had a pic of the cake when cut) is in between the red and white layers is blue frosting, and between the white and blue layer is red frosting. (So once cut, is should be red, blue, white, red, blue.) 

A trick I learned just recently so that the colors don't bleed into the outer frosting, is to pipe a line around the edge of the cake with your outside frosting before you put your layer on, then frost the middle with whatever you want. Also helpful if you are using a jelly filling or something. Another thing that's awesome is that it helps fill in the cracks. :D 

Here's the cake with the crumb coat and the design. 


I printed it out to the size I wanted and then cut the design out, laid it on the fully frosted cake, and traced it with a toothpick. I thought I could just pipe around the stars, in a "relief" style, but that didn't work so well, so I went back and free-hand frosted them in white, using a writing tip, probably a 2. The rest was piped with a 16 (star tip).

Finished product:


I don't often pipe borders, but this was definitely my first time piping a double border in 2 colors. (I also used two different size star tips for that.) Turned out great, I think.


There it is. In all of it's horribly photographed glory. lol Now, most of the cakes were made by the boys themselves, and I'm all about letting the kids do their own stuff, but this is one thing that's my thing, and since it was for a fundraiser, I wanted to help try raise as much money as possible. 

Ok, so the cake is MY trophy. hehe. But I enjoy cake decorating, it's the closest thing I have to a hobby besides late night binging, and so sue me, I like to show off my work a little. We all need something we can be proud of, and mine certainly isn't my housecleaning skills. :P (still working on that. 5 kids aren't helping.)

While the auction wasn't a great success, I have gotten a lot of compliments and questions, so I may unofficially dabble in a cake baking side business. Very, very unofficially. 

So if you need a cake, Call Me. :D


Thursday, May 10, 2012

This is my life


The bathroom hasn't been cleaned in a week, because what's the point? I can't keep up with all the mud. Though I have scrubbed the toilet and wiped down the sink at least once, the floors and the tub are probably health hazard territory, and it's really getting annoying to step out of the shower onto a rug of small pebbles and sand.

I had a garage sale last weekend that got mostly rained out, so now I have all this stuff, shoved in vehicles, that I need to deal with, but God help me it's not coming back in the house.


It looks like a bomb went off in my living room... and this is after I picked up most of the toys. And the diaper wipes that Huggyface decided to strew all over. He also likes to drag out that drat blasted "bug vacuum," aka dust buster, twenty times a day. At least the floor underneath all that was recently vacuumed. I could vacuum the entry a thousand times a day, and one kid could walk in and you wouldn't be able to tell. Nevermind the million shoes scattered throughout every room in the house. The kitchen floor needs to be swept and mopped, and next time I won't leave the mop water out for my cell phone to get "washed" in. (Totally my bad habit, to not empty the bucket.) But last time I mopped (9 days ago I think?) I broke the mop so... I did manage to get all the dishes done today, just in time to make chocolate chip cookies since I ran out of after school snacks, and supper is next on the list. 

It's a vicious cycle. 

I did start a rewards system where if each kid clears their own place without being asked then they get a few M&M's. So that helps with clearing, at least. I have considered taking away all shoes except one pair per person to help with the "shoes all over the place" problem.

The thing is, this is what I can accomplish with kids in school. What about in 20 days when they're not in school anymore and then there's NO "uninterrupted" time? Any other moms freaking out about summer? I know I should start a chores system, but I'm really great about trying to plan, and horrible about implementation. And there's just way too many options of how it could be done, what are the kinds of chores each kid should do? Should we focus on hygiene, rooms, household, homework, a bit of everything? I get stuck in being overwhelmed with it all.

And oh my gosh if the baby poops one more time today... WHAT did I FEED him???!!!! Is 17 months to early/late to toilet train?

What activities should we do? swimming? Community Ed? Gymnastics? Ballet? Baseball? Nothing? Do we want to go on vacation or get a fence (or part of one, anyway)? Summer school. Math facts. VBS. Library reading program. Trips to the park. Day trip to fun places. 

AAAAAARRRGGGG!

Deep breaths.

Is this how you're anticipating summer?

Ah, the life of a parent. So grand and glorious.


Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Literal Misunderstanding

I wish I had a mini voice recorder. I can't tell you how many blog posts I make in my head while washing dishes, how many random, crazy things my kids say that I wish could be preserved forever. Unfortunately, my mind is a wasteland and there seems to be no memory capacity left. sigh. Motherhood? Lack of sleep? Aging? All of the above?

This just happened and I flew to jot it here.

I'm pulling a cooked pizza out of the oven. Cheeks is sitting at the table and says:

Cheeks: I thought we were having pizza.
Me: We are.
Cheeks: I thought we were having frozen pizza.
Me: This is frozen pizza.
Cheeks: No, I mean still frozen.
I look at her like she's crazy.
Cheeks: What? It's really good.

Because she would know since she's eaten frozen pizza like, sooo many times.

As in... never.

Lol. Love how literal kids are sometimes.


The end. :D