Cake baking lessons learned.

I learned two very interesting important lessons Tuesday night.

1. Don't bake cakes when the humidity is 95%.

2. Don't bake cakes with a seven year old helping you when it is 8:30 at night, and he should already be in bed.

Sigh. Four inedible cakes later..............

Let's start at the beginning. ("Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start." Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music - one of my favorite movies.)

Ruth and Abbe took a cake decorating class last night. They each needed one or two round cakes for the class. The girls were supposed to bake the cakes themselves but they were taking FOREVER to get their school work finished after their three day weekend.

I really wanted to get the cakes baked on Tuesday so that they would be easier to ice and work with on Wednesday. So, I stayed home to bake cakes while Jason took the kids to the library. The humidity in the house was atrocious. I did not have any cake mixes in the house because I have tried to quit buying such things. So, I had to bake cakes from scratch which really usually isn't any big deal.

But once I finished with the batter (I used yellow cake from Betty Crocker - usually a fail safe recipe.) I could tell something was different but really didn't think about it too much. The cakes really didn't bake well. They were not light but WAAYYY to moist and ..... weird.

Sooooooo, enter cake batch #2.

When I say I am going to bake another batch, Eian begs me to help. Fine. Whatever. Bake with the kids all the time. No problem, thinks Mama. Huh. We added a little more flour because I thought the humidity caused the first batch to turn out strange. Also, since I was in a hurry, I didn't realize that we forgot to put the butter and Crisco in until I had the cakes already in the oven and I was cleaning up. Sigh.

CAKE FAIL #2.

The second batch felt like cornbread but more firm when I put a toothpick in to check if they were done baking.

Ruth and Abbe decided to take all four cakes anyway. They made their Pumpkin Cakes at the class on the ones Eian and I totally screwed up.

Then tonight, Eian, Ruth, and Abbe made 'birthday' cakes for Sarafina and Splotch. Ruth and Eian made Splotch's and Abbe made Sarafina's.

It's been a long week.

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Side Notes:

1. I have not been sleeping well due to having very strange dreams every night. And I remember them in the morning. The kids have gotten a kick out of hearing about them. Strange, strange dreams.

2. I wish I would have watched the Vuelta yesterday. Alberto Contador kicked everyone's butt from what I hear. Tried to watch the replay today but kept having to help with school work. Did watch the end of today's stage - was a really cool sprint finish.

3. Watching Project Runway while writing this. Love, love, love this show. Abbe likes to watch is too. I spend the whole time telling her, "That is not appropriate language." "You shouldn't treat people like that." etc. She just keeps saying, "I know Momma" in her disgusted 10 year old voice.

4. Sarafina is prowling around like the mad hunter that she is. Just a few minutes age she found the grasshopper that Eian accidentally let loose in the house after school. He kept telling me that he thought Smokey ate it. I think he was saying that so he could quit looking for it. I kept saying, "I don't want 40 million grasshopper babies in the house! You need to find that thing!" The poor grasshopper must have been trying to make a mad dash to the front door, not realizing that we have a tiger in the house!

Red, White and Blue Cake

I have wanted to make a flag cake for years but we just haven't accomplished this EVER!

Well, we did this year!

This was done all the way back on July 4, of course, and I forgot to share it with you all.

All I had to do was mention the cake to Abbe and Miss Persistent made sure we bought everything we needed at the store.

With my helpers we made a buttermilk cake and cream cheese frosting from The Joy of Cooking.

Then, I let my helpers go to town putting the flag together.

They really worked well together. I was very proud of how well they worked and talked things out.

I think it turned out pretty well. Don't you?

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Watched a lot of the Olympics today with the kids. Abbe is the one who is most interested in the different sports. Eian was VERY interested in fencing - imagine that! And Ruth was trying to watch the dressage on the computer but nbcolympics.com kept freezing up. Aggravating.

Anyway, I watched the men's road race this morning. But NOT starting at 5:00 am!!!! Huh. Team USA was awesome. I was especially happy to see some young Americans doing so well. While watching the Tour de France, it seemed like all the Americans were almost 40 except for Tejay Vangarderen.

Well, Taylor Phinney finished 4th! Yeah! He is only 22. Most cyclists don't peak until their early 30's. Ruth and Abbe only like watching the part where they interview all the "cute young guys".  Well, Taylor and Tejay are two of their favorites. ;-)

Afternoon at the park

Since Jason was at the firehouse today, I took the kids to the park this afternoon to wear them out some. Annnndddd, of course, there was a birthday party going on there for a little girl who had little friends who wanted to play on the playground.

Soooooo, my kids got the "you are the big kids and can't be running over and running around like maniacs big kids do, please be careful." So, not as much wearing out as I had hoped. But they did make me pretty proud at how they helped and played carefully with the little ones.

And I did get three good pictures of my beautiful kids! I especially love this one on Eian with his missing tooth. Makes him look just as ornery as he is!

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:(
Today was the last day of the Tour de France.

Only good thing is that the Olympics start next week - with more cycling!

Yea! :)

Excuses, Excuses

More excuses on why I have not been posting:
1. I haven't felt the best.
2. Ruth has had a sinus infection for about TWO weeks and is on second antibiotic.
3. Eian has been sick for the past five days and a boy needs his mama when he is sick. Doctor evaluation: swimmer's ear and a virus. So, ear drop antibiotics and no swimming for a week.
4. Jason is back to work the firehouse after being off for a month (one of the pros of being a firefighter and not having used any vacation for a long time due to low seniority).
5. Overwhelmed by what all I need to blog about.
6. The kids and I haven't really settled into a summer routine yet.
7. Haven't downloaded recent pictures yet - keep forgetting.
8. Could probably list about 20 more reasons.

The excuses may be many but they are still not good enough. I just need to make time!

Sooooo, my goal is to blog twice a week for the rest of the summer! Let's all hope for the best!

Especially since THE TOUR starts on Saturday!!!! Yeah! Can't wait!

We are babysitting a good friends dog this week - Moxie. She is pretty funny and still has a lot of puppy like enthusiasm that our dogs now lack. I need to take some pictures 'cause she is pretty cute!

My Weekend

Saturday we went to Abbe's basketball game in the morning. She played some really good defense. I love watching her play, she has such concentration the whole time. My mom and dad came to watch too. Made Abbe really happy to have them there. (She hasn't been able to play for the last two weeks due to pneumonia.)

Then we went to the Ross County Historical Museums. They were open for free in honor of Ohio's Statehood Day. Dad joined us. We all had a pretty good time looking and learning. They have some pretty cool exhibits. After a while Ruth and Eian had had enough of being good and quiet and not touching anything, and were ready to run around some. As we are heading toward the door, a good two and a half hours after we had arrived, Ruth says, "Where is Grandma? We can't leave her here." Sometimes Ruth is such a blonde! (I can say that, being blonde myself.)

Sorry no pictures. I have gotten used to not carrying one. Need to get back in the habit.

This morning I woke up with the WORST headache. I think I need to follow my pharmacist's suggestion of taking an allergy medicine. So, we did not make it to church. Tried to sleep in to get rid of it. Did not work.

But we had already promised the kids that they could go to a friend's birthday skating party. She is in Eian's class but she also lives around the corner from us. So, all three kids know her - she is a really sweet girl. So, three ibuprofen later, which did not work, we were off to the roller rink.

Eian invented a new version of roller skating which was hilarious! Am I a bad mother because I was laughing so hard at him that I couldn't help him??? To quote Jason, "...many Bambi on the ice moments." He FINALLY got a LITTLE bit better right before we left.

Came home and took a little nap to try to get rid on my headache. Did not work.

Missed the only cycling that has been on tv in MONTHS. So really need to go, they are re-playing it now.