Look at those droopy little eyes–we are so not morning people. We get up early but are not functional till after 8:30am …

This photo was taken before school on the morning of C’s big Betsy Ross presentation.  They all had to choose a famous American to research and do a speech about.  C choose Betsy Ross because well…she must be his great great great great grandmother of course.. after-all we have the same last name. It made him really excited to do the research so I went along with his assumption.  He had to bring a prop for his presentation and I suggested that I could help him sew his own flag, but like most boys and men it was only a good prop if it included food   C mixed the cake batter himself (spice cake, his pick) I baked it and he rolled out and cut the fondant himself.  I did the assembly (icing the cake with cream cheese frosting then applying the fondant).

There were lots of oohs and aahs from his classmates and C had a big proud grin on his face..totally worth it!

Oh yeah his speech was great too.  I was very proud of him. The video is hard to hear.  All the kids were were stationed around the room and the parents rotated from student to student.  All those speeches going on at once made for tough video recording,  but the bit at the beginning where he reveals his cake needs no audio …the look on his face was amazing!

iPod picture of C’s Betsy Ross portrait out in the hall on the second grade timeline:

One more cake pic

The kids are super excited to do it.

This year my grandmother sent us a great kit too.

My sister and I did most of the decorating, I think the kids lasted about 30 mins and she and I were at the table for ohhh…. 2 hours.

The problem is they use up most of their attention span waiting for us to construct the houses (while they fill up on candy).

Our lesson learned…….construct the frames or houses a day before by yourself.  That way you and the kids can get straight to the best part…decorating! Only took 3 years but I figured it out.

It is also better to have a sturdy dry house for them to mash candy on to….a soft newly built house doesn’t stand up so well.

We noticed a little too late that this is exactly what the directions suggest by the way

After all that work I can’t bear to through them out even though the Holiday season is over and we finished putting or decorations away yesterday.

So here they are memorialized for all to see.

I love pictures, after I have taken a few I don’t feel so bad about letting it go knowing I captured the hard-work to enjoy forever.

We made 3. My daughters has the hot pink  and heart roof,  my nephew’s (6months old didn’t he do a great job…wink wink) is the one with the peppermint tree topper, and my son’s has the readhead out front.

We celebrated Beauty’s Fourth Birthday this weekend.

I made the cake (Dora cake,pink with two layers) as requested.

It was my first time working with fondant. Beauty is one of the few people who likes to actually eat the fondant.

I think I did an okay job, if I do say so myself!  Thank goodness she wanted lots of decorations…they sure helped to cover the imperfections.

She was happy with it, and her opinion matters the most.

The cake is always VERY IMPORTANT to her.

Beauty doesn’t consider it a birthday without a big cake.  Ace of Cakes I am not…but I try

click on photos below to enlarge

Here is my version of my friend’s rainbow cake.  She made each layer a different color by adding food coloring to white cake batter, like 5 glorious layers in all.  I took the same idea and instead of baking separate cake layers in each color (I don’t have enough cake pans… or the patience to wait for them, then clean them and reuse)  I simply took 1 cup of each colored batter and added them in to the center of the pan.  Each addition caused the previous cup of batter to spread out.  I made two layers and used rainbow chip frosting to top it off.  My kids loved it and asked for me to make them “rainbow cakes” for their birthdays. Thanks for the idea MGF!

Also…….. I used  neon liquid food coloring by McCormick . They turned out to be crazy bright even after baking and I bought them at my neighborhood grocery store. No extra trip to the craft store for special gel dye BONUS! (ps.  I know food dye is not the healthiest thing for the kids, but neither is cake right! It is meant to be a special sometimes treat)

Inspired by my best friend’s rainbow cake, I made these cookies for my son’s end of the year carnival tomorrow.  I am vowing however,  to make the cake too just as soon as I remember to pick up white cake mix at the store.  I also couldn’t resist including some pictures of my little beauty enjoying some samples.

Hostess cupcakes eat your heart out!  I made these for the kids to take to Grandma’s for their sleep over.

Click here for the recipe

I made these cute monkey cupcakes for my sister’s monkey themed baby shower.  They were super easy and tasted great.

You just need chocolate cupcakes, chocolate frosting, vanilla wafers, mini nutter butters split in half, and black and red frosting.