Baked Roses

The Saturday after we returned from D.C., a friend of mine wanted me to make a cake for her girl's birthday party. Before we left, her daughter had drawn a picture of what she wanted - a 2-tiered heart-shaped cake, with fondant roses, butterfly, and writing. Easy schmeasy.

Because I have 4 kids, I started on the roses on Monday. Plus, fondant roses are a lot easier if you let each layer dry completely before putting on the next layer. And there are 4 layers. All went well. By Thursday evening, the decorations we completely finished, including 21 roses. (I had started with 24, but Zachary had eaten 3 before I caught him.) Beautiful, wouldn't you agree? All I had to do on Friday was bake the cake, ice it, and place the decorations on it. Easy schmeasy.

So, Friday morning I needed to go to the store to buy eggs to make the cake. The store didn't open until 9, so I got the pans ready, made the icing, and then went to the store. When I got home, I turned on the oven, mixed the dry ingredients, measured out the wet, and was about to mix them all together when the phone rang. It was the school nurse, calling to say that Erica wasn't feeling well. She'd had a slight cold all week, but that morning I wondered if she was going to make it through school - just seemed a bit more lethargic. Oh well, I thought, at least I hadn't really gotten into the cake yet. Good timing!

Little did I know how good the timing was! As the kids were getting their shoes on, I smelled something funny. And all of the sudden, it hit me. You see, to keep prying fingers and mouths out of my cake decorations, I often store them in the oven. I'm very careful to put them on my bed and lock the bedroom if I need to use the stove or oven. Except this once. This very day. When I REALLY needed to not have this happen. So I ran to the oven, and sure enough, disaster had struck. The roses, which were neatly placed on toothpicks into a box to keep them upright and well-shaped, were now melted blobs neatly placed on toothpicks on a very warm box. The letters, number, and butterfly had been in a Tupperware container. That Tupperware container was now melted all and dripping all over my oven. Oh, and it was on fire too.

My first problem - how to douse the fire. I didn't really want to get the fire extinguisher out. You see, I was in the middle of making a cake, and had cake ingredients out that I didn't feel like ruining. Second, my one experience with a fire extinguisher turned out very messy because the fire extinguisher wouldn't turn off. (Want details? Ask my sister Karen. That was her fire.) Luckily, in a recent conversation with Karen about that fire, she had mentioned that you could use baking soda to put out a grease fire. I know this wasn't a grease fire, but I knew smothering it would work. So I got out the baking soda, threw it on the fire, and voila! the fire was out. Jessie thought that was hilarious - throwing baking soda on a fire. Wanna see what dripping Tupperware looks like? It looks like this:

Anyhow, I took the racks out of the oven, turned on the outside fan, opened the windows, and left to pick up Erica. And that's where I feel fortunate for the timing of the phone call. Because the nurse had called 5 minutes earlier, I might have left before smelling the melting Tupperware. Erica's school is only a few blocks away; I would have definitely left the oven on while I picked her up. And the fire could have grown bigger. Or the box could have caught on fire. Then I would have come home to a real problem.

So I let the oven cool down and started scraping off the goo. Fortunately on the racks, because it was dripping, it was mostly on the top of the oven racks, so I was able to pry it right off. For the parts that were stuck harder, I went downstairs to get James' chisel and hammer. Oh, did I mention James just built a new table down there. And that it's nearly impossible to get around said table. More especially so if you're pregnant. Not so fun. So I cleaned up the oven, baked the cake, and went to work on the decorations. Since Erica was sick, I cancelled her therapy, which actually gave me more time to finish the decorations. Since I'd spent all week making roses, I was a pro at it now, and it didn't take much time. Unbelievably, it all pulled together. Here are the results:

And the birthday girl told me today that it was delicious! :)

Art Show

Every year our city has an art show to showcase students' works. This year one of Eldon's art works and one of Erica's art works were showcased.

This is two people playing beach volleyball, with a third person riding a shark.

This is a vase/bowl of flowers that Erica made. We're proud of their hard work!

Washington D.C.

During spring break, the kids, my friend Malisa, and I went to Virginia to visit my sister Karen and tour D.C. Malisa is my visiting teaching partner, and months before we were talking about spring break. I said I'd like to go to D.C., but couldn't go because James couldn't take the time off work. Malisa said she'd never been and would like to go. When I reminded her that I have 4 young children and she still was crazy enough to want to go, plans were made. See, good things can come of visiting teaching!

It was great, because although we'd been to Virginia a few times to visit my sister, I hadn't done the tourist thing, although I had been there about 10 years ago when my friend Christie lived there.

We left on Monday and the kids were good. They've always been pretty decent travelers. I was a bit concerned about Zachary getting bored, but he was pretty good and only fussed for a few minutes before falling asleep. I only got lost once, and that was going to Malisa's house (I guess my brain wasn't turned on yet!) And Malisa stopped me from going east when I should go west, so all was good. We hit D.C. traffic, as we always do, but once we got into the HOV lane, it was smooth sailing. And it took us quite a bit of time to get the DVD player set up, but then we got creative and everyone was happy.

Tuesday we went to the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art. Cool thing about the Smithsonians in D.C. - all free! Can't beat that price. Jared had taken the day off work to go with us, but when he realized we wouldn't all fit in one van, he volunteered to stay home and babysit Zachary. So nice!

Here's Jess in front of a cryptography statue thingy. (Thanks Malisa for the pic from your blog!)

Tall water fountain - as tall sometimes as the 4-story building.

This statue looked like they were playing potato sack races.

An Andy-Warhol self-portrait.

A cool perspective painting.

And another one. Erica liked this one the best. She started to get bored, as she generally does, so I let her take some pictures to keep her occupied.

Wednesday was a rainy day, so Karen stayed home with the kids while Malisa and I went to the Freer Gallery of Art. But first we went to the Natural History Museum to see the Hope Diamond. It wasn't as big as we thought it would be. In fact, Malisa walked up to it, declared it was small and not worth seeing, and turned right back around. It was a priceless moment!

So then we walked to the Freer Gallery. I'm not a huge art fan or very knowledgeable about art, but it was cool to see painting by artists I'd heard of - Van Gogh, Picasso, Rembrant, Vermeer, etc.

After that excursion, we really wanted to try and see the White House. We had a map and a GPS, so away we went. Well, the road that you used to be able to drive on to see the White House is closed (probably because of 9/11). But the GPS didn't know that. Which was the problem we had the last time we tried to see the White House. So we drove down random roads that we thought might work until we saw it. Hooray! Unfortunately, this was at about 6:00pm. I have NEVER seen traffic so horrible. I now know what gridlock means. It means traveling 0mph, honking your horn a lot (yes, I honked just to be part of the full experience), and getting nowhere for a long time, but laughing the whole while!

Thursday was take-your-child-to-work day, so Joe went with Karen to clean houses. When they got home, Joe babysat and we went to the National Cathedral. Very large and cool.

They have a lot of gargoyles on the side, one of which is Darth Vader's head. Seriously.

Inside was beautiful. There were a lot of stained glass windows. Unfortunately, my camera does not work well in low light, so I didn't get much. But I got this stained glass window. There were many beautiful ones.

There are also people entombed within the cathedral, including Hellen Keller.

On Friday we went to D.C. with all the kids and visited the monuments. Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, WWII Memorial, Washington Monument, and the reflecting pool with baby ducks (that was the kids' favorite). Zachary slept while we were walking around, very cute. Then we bought yummy overpriced ice cream treats from a vendor by the Lincoln Memorial. Erica's ice cream bar fell off her stick, but we caught it. So I had to feed it to her out of my hand. Very messy. And sticky. And gooey. And funny. Good thing we had wipes. Since I was covered in chocolate and ice cream, I asked Malisa to get the wipes out for me. She pulled out a package that had one dried up wipe in it and looked at me with an "are you serious?" look. Luckily, I had a newer package in there too with plenty of wipes. I can only imagine what went through her head when she saw me and Erica covered in ice cream and one wipe for the both of us.

It was a great trip and I'm so glad we went. Thanks, Karen, for letting us take over your place!

Since my camera wasn't working well, Malisa took most of the pictures. You can see her blog entry to see a few more pics. I'll update the post again with more pictures when I get them.

CAUTION: Construction Zone

Since the whole family except for James was going to be in D.C. for a week, we decided it was a good time to redo the boys' bedroom. He started the Saturday before we left, so I got some shots of it.

First, we had to move all the furniture out of the room. The bed is in the living room, the dresser in the office, with all the closet clothes stacked on top of it, the crib in our room, and various other things in the basement. Zach helped with the moving: (for those of you who get this by email, you really have to go to the blog and watch the video - it's too cute!)

Before you call the press because of his strength, I will let you in on the secret that James was pulling the other end. But it was adorable how he wanted to help.

This is the boys' room before. Seriously. It's looked this bad for nearly 5 years.

Eldon was super-excited to get to be part of the destruction. He was only allowed to work on the outside walls so he wouldn't destroy the interior walls on the connecting rooms. But it is curious that our room ended up with 2 Eldon-height holes in the wall. Hmmm.....

Why James allowed him to have a hatchet - with a sharp edge - I'll never know. But he managed to not chop anyone into bits.

A shot of all the walls torn down. Those are exterior walls. With. no. insulation. Brrrrrr cold in the winter and steamy hot in the summer. One of the reasons the drywall went down.

INSULATION!

The drywall. James and two men from our ward helped with the destruction and putting up the walls. Thanks, guys!

This is the room as it currently sits. Another friend from the ward helped James mud and tape. The trim still needs to be put up and painted and probably a million other little things that get the room ready. But it's progress! The walls are jazz blue and the ceiling is planetarium. We'll put glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. Eldon wanted it black, but he didn't finish practicing piano in time to go pick out the paint colors with his dad. But we made it darker to try and make him happy. I think he likes it. I'm not sure if he knows about the stars yet. I'm sure he'll like that!

Zoo

It seems like forever since I've been able to update my blog. Looking at the number of pictures on my camera, I'd say I'm right.

On Good Friday we went to the Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport, CT (about an hour from here.) It's a small zoo - no large animals. But just the right size - about the time you think you're ready to go home, you realize there's only one more section left to look at, and then you can go home. It was beautiful weather, the perfect day for an outing.

First, we measured everyone's wingspan to see if they're growing well.

Eldon's a good-sized turkey vulture.

Jess measured about the same.

Yep, 3 turkey vultures.

Then there's the obligatory picture in the peacock.

And the cutest animals at the zoo. They let us pet these ones and even take them home with us. :)

Groundhogs peeping out of their holes. The white cylinders behind them are tubes you can crawl into and pop up out of the ground to get the full groundhog experience.

Lazy tiger.

Can you guess what it is? Crocodile? Alligator? Nope, it's a caiman.

Scarlet Ibis

Toucan. Although I'm not sure if his name was Sam or not.

Dad, this picture is for you. WHAT IS THIS?

Update: It's a blue-eared pheasant. (Thanks, Dad!)

This duck has his feathers in a ruffle. Maybe it's the new fashion among ducks.

This is a peafowl. We learned that the males are peacocks and the females are peahens. Who knew? (Yes, Dad, I know you did. :))

A very shaggy sheep. Time for shearing!

This, we learned on the way out of the zoo, is a grouse Guinea fowl. It is *very* loud. These and the peafowls were running loose around the zoo. The kids liked chasing them. Poor birds.