I think the little girls have been a little stressed out lately. So I wanted to do something fun with them tonight. So first of all, after dinner, I started reading Robinson Crusoe to all the kids. I just summarized the first few chapters and jumped in when the book starts getting good. I don’t even know if I summarized correctly because I haven’t read the book in so long. Mostly I was just making stuff up. But I’m somebody who sleeps through the beginning parts of movies. It’s never important stuff. You can always pick up the plot halfway through, no problem! Also I don’t read prologues or anything italicized at the beginning of chapters or any type of long poems (LOTR, I’m looking at you!). That stuff is almost always fluff that is not necessary to the progression of the story.
Anyway, I got to start that book with my kids. Then the boys had activities. And as soon as they left it was girl time!
So Wink got this cool cake mix for Christmas. In case you are interested, it’s called Purple Rain. So baking this cake was our girls’ night activity.
Wink held the box and read us all the instructions. She preheated the oven and told us what to do when. And she generously allowed Pink to help with the manual labor.
I didn’t think I had ever made a layer cake before (I was surprised to find we even had two pans. I’m still not entirely sure one of those wasn’t a wedding gift for Baboo.). But Wink tells me she and I made one together for Pink’s birthday a while back.
Once we got the cakes in the oven and baking, I sat down to rest. Because today was a big day of going and going and going and this was my first time to relax. That’s when the girls started talking about “the frosting”. Ugh. I told them that I would look up a recipe later and maybe make something. Then without my body telling my brain what it was doing, there I was in the kitchen making buttercream frosting from scratch.
They thought the cake looked plain without candles or something. But I wasn’t about to put candles on it. So they decided that strawberries would look pretty. I could do strawberries.
The cake itself was actually really good. I was surprised. The frosting, unfortunately, was just not that great. And too sweet. I actually really enjoyed the unsweetened strawberries in it, though. And that’s how I ate my leftover glob of frosting on my plate–just grabbed a couple extra strawberries to wipe it up with.
But for me at least, the point wasn’t about the cake at all. It was just getting to spend some stress-free time with my girls and smile and laugh with them. Check and check.
sparkling blue 