Halloween Is Coming

We are so excited that halloween is coming! I took these pictures before we went to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween party at Disney World. I thought they turned out pretty cute and figured there was a great chance that these might be the best pictures we get. I was stalling cleaning my house and thought I'd go on and post them. Enjoy! Happy Halloween to all!

The Great Cake Escape

So the girls (Kathryn and Emily) decided to enter a cake decorating contest at school for their Hoe Down. They literally spent hours working on their beautiful cakes. They did a fantastic job and had a great time. We all learned a lot about cake decorating--no matter how much red food coloring you use you will still have hot pink icing, shredded wheat cereal can come in useful and when you’ve been eating candy for a couple of hours it tastes pretty good, 6 and 7 year olds can make great creative cakes all by themsleves. I successfully got both cakes (and all four kids) to school in perfect form (the cakes net the kids). The girls were excited, the hoe down was fun, and just as we were leaving we learned this year they had given the cakes away as prizes for the cake walk. Great idea in theory, however, we had not worked on these cakes for hours for someone else to take home. I believe if we had known that was the plan up front, we would have not been surprised and handled the situation differently. As soon as I realized what was going on I thought very rationally and decided just to pick up and cakes and leave--as if we didn’t really know the plan. In all honesty, we didn’t and I didn’t want to find out any more information. As I went to pick up Kathryn’s cake, a little girl was standing there with the number that matches Kathryn’s cake and she was very excited that she had just won it! I about died and tried to explain that there was a problem. The child’s mom was insistent that her child had won the cake at the cake walk and we could go home and make another one. I controlled myself and didn’t tell her to go home and make her own cake, but was not about ready to give up Kathryn’s cake--Kathryn was in a panic with her eyes full of tears. I couldn’t leave the cake, but I had to do something. I sent Emily to go out and get Abe. I told Abe I had to go figure something out and not to let ANYONE take Kathryn’s cake. He agreed and I talked to the mom and we decided to see if they could trade out our cake for another. I turned around and Kathryn’s cake was gone! I about died and then I saw Kathryn and asked her where her cake was. She said, “Daddy just took it out the back door!!!” I about died again and at this point all rational thinking was gone-- what would I say when the Mom came back, what do I do about Emily’s cake (which luckily had not yet been claimed, but would be any moment), and how do I think with all four of my kids, stressed, in a room with mass chaos reining. I believe I did what any self-respecting mother would do--I grabbed Emily’s cake (told the girls to grab Brandon by the hand) and we sped out the back door as well.
As I was running through the dark rain, with the high-jacked cake, and all four kids, I saw Abe coming down the road with the van, he pulled over and we all hopped in. We had saved the cakes! However, my consciences let me know that this was not setting a good example and I better resolve things inside for who knew the rumors that would fly about the member of the Stake Presidency who stole a cake at the elementary school fundraiser. Plus, I would have to face these people again at some point. I got some money and went back in. The mother was in there (correctly assuming we had escaped with the cake through the back door when she wasn't looking) and they had arranged for the child to take a different cake, I spoke with the PTA president who was trying to sort through this chaos reagarding our other "stolen" cake and told her we just learned that the cakes were being given away and my daughter was in the car and was not giving her cake up. I gave her $10 and told her to give it to the kid that ended up without a cake and they could go buy themselves some cupcakes. I felt better and we all returned home, happily with our cakes.

Kathryn's Barnyard Cake