Tuesday

Corwin's birthday was Tuesday. I made a cake and wrapped his gifts (just what he asked for, a twirl a tie and a few new ties). The girls lost the birthday cards we bought for him, so they each took a sheet of printer paper and colored their own cards for him.

Tiffany set up the play room table in the living room and put his gifts on it. It looked very nice. Emily then opened the gifts about three times, and spilled a glass of water on the table, completely soaking one of them.

I started making a cake. I borrowed my mom's old McCall's cookbook for a few recipes (wonderful cookbook, by the way). So, I found a white cake recipe and proceeded to start making the cake. I got the shortening out and found that it was rancid. The girls wanted to smell it, so I let them. They were sitting at the counter. I mistakenly left it on the counter in front of them. I went to get a new can out of the linen closet (yep, I keep food in the linen closet). When I returned, I saw that they each had handfuls of shortening. I told them to clean it off themselves. I even gave them some paper towels. So, I start mixing up the cake. Understand, I am not 2 feet from them. I am standing at the same counter even. Well, I glance over, and they now have shortening up to their armpits! The paper towels I gave them were unrecognizable shortening blobs. I had to actually, physically clean each child myself (not just hand them a paper towel) and take the shortening out to the outside garbage. What amazes me the most is what a one track mind I have.

To finish the cake (a layer cake with strawberry jelly between the layers), I had to make some frosting. While I think it's kind of fun to decorate cakes, I hate making frosting. So, I looked through the frosting recipes in the book, most of which were to be cooked on a double boiler. I found a wonderfully simple frosting, I just hoped it would taste ok on a cake. Actually, it is called "sour cream topping." The recipe calls for 1 cup of sour cream, 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar, a one tablespoon grated orange peel. I put 1 cup of sour cream, 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar, 1 tsp vanilla flavor and a drop or two of almond flavor in a bowl, and Katie mixed them (I guess I just have a hard time following a recipe). I put it on the cake, it didn't cover very well, so we mixed up another recipe of it, and it covered the cake well. The girls enjoyed licking out the containers. They thought it tasted great. And actually the frosted cake tasted great as well. It was much more refreshing than the usual gag-me shortening & powdered sugar frosting. The downside, of course, is that you can't do real decorating with it. I bet it would taste really good with strawberries.

One birthday card was found before Corwin came home, the one from the girls. The card from me wasn't found until the next day.