Small Successes Vol. 1: Cakes and Pumpkins

I've seen the Small Successes button on a lot of blogs, and I enjoy reading the posts. The idea is to list three things you've accomplished this week that you feel good about, and share them on your blog. I'm jumping in this week, partly because I wanted to show you the results of my creative juices (however mediocre they are--I am not very good at artistic endeavors, and I'm always a little jealous of my fellow bloggers who post pictures of the fabulous knitting, sewing, and crafting projects you've done. I don't do any of those things. But I'm not a bad cook and as you'll see, I can be pretty savvy with a kitchen knife.) And thanks to Danielle Bean for hosting this fun meme on Faith and Family Live! (I think this is supposed to be a Thursday meme, but I'm posting a day early, mainly because I'm not quite awake yet and I don't feel like starting on my chores. If I can finish this in 30 minutes that will be a small success to add to the list. I've only got 20 minutes left, so I better hurry so I can get something done before I have to go to work.) Okay, here goes:


1. Moe celebrated his birthday recenlty and since it's getting close to Halloween, he decided he wanted a tombstone birthday cake. Yep, you read that right. When I asked him what he wanted written on the tombstone, he said, "R.I.P." "What about if I write '2000-2110' so it looks like you've lived for 110 years?" I asked. Nope. "What about Happy Birthday Moe?" suggested his father. "Um, NO, Dad. I'ts a TOMBSTONE." Because of his food allergies I made this dairy-free, egg-free cake, and improvised the design.

I doubled the recipe to make one square cake and one round one.

The dirt mound and the zombie hand were Moe's idea.

Even though we already had plenty of colorful birthday candles on hand, when I saw these black-and-white ones I thought they'd be fun for this cake. The boys were impressed and said they were "Goth."

2. Of course when it's your birthday, you HAVE to bring cupcakes to school to share with your class. Every year for Moe, I bake chocolate cupcakes using a recipe I found years ago on the back of a Hershey's Cocoa box:

QUICK CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES

1- 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup Hershey's Cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup water
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 T white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Line muffin cups (2 1/2 in diameter) with paper bake cups. Mix flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Add water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla; beat with whisk or spoon until batter is well blended. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake 16 to 18 minutes. Remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost with "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING. 16 cupcakes.

They are delicious, and Moe says that the kids in his class had been asking him all week if he was going to bring them. I was surprised they remembered them from last year, but that's how yummy they are!

Last years cupcakes...


...and this year's.

3. I picked up a beautiful pumpkin at the Farmer's Market on Saturday; not too big, but just right for carving. Instead of my usual method of cutting out eyes, nose, and mouth without any real planning (i.e. making it up as I go along), the kids wanted to find a pattern online and carve a REALLY COOL one. After vetoing several choices--the Darth Vader and Yoda ones were just too complex, and I'm NOT carving a puking pumpkin again this year--...

(Last year's pumpkins. The kids designed them both; I thought the one on the right was particularly clever. The one on the left--not so much.)

...Curly found a cute Sonic the Hedgehog pattern that seemed reasonably simple to carve, and one that everyone liked.

Definitely NOT professional quality, but we had fun making it and it does look a little like Sonic the Hedgehog.

(One other success: Last week I managed to complete almost everything on my to-do lists every day. Quite a feat if I may say so myself. This week I'm not getting nearly as much done, but I haven't made any to-do lists either. And this post took way longer than 30 minutes; I ended up taking two blogging sessions to complete it.)

7 Quick Takes, Volume 2

I missed Recipe Swap Thursday (again); but now that it's Friday I thought I'd post a few little tidbits today. Here goes:

1. There is still one more name left for Fallible Blogma's Support a Catholic Speaker Month: Dave Durand. Hurry on over and grab it while you still can! Post a few paragraphs about him and link back to Fallible Blogma. Soon all the names will have links to their respective posts; for now you can check the url's assigned to them and read what bloggers have written. I've already read a few; I wish I had time to read them all!






2. Back in May I posted this recipe for allergy-free cake that I use for Moe. Recently we celebrated his ninth birthday, and he wanted a football-themed party. I tripled the recipe (just like I did with the cross cake), and I got a larger football shape,


and a smaller helmet.


For the football I used a Pampered Chef oval baker, and a round cake pan for the helmet. Easy-peasy!

3. When I was preparing to make Moe's birthday cake, I finally broke down and bought a cake decorating kit, with disposable bags and tips. I should have done that a long time ago! It makes writing and drawing on cakes MUCH easier than when you buy the individual tubes of decorating icing. I need more practice, but slowly I'm getting better. (Although, when I was viewing the pictures we took during the party, I noticed a couple of spots I missed:



















Oh well, nobody's perfect.)

4. So far, the Swine Flu has stayed away from our house, thank the Good Lord! Yesterday Curly woke up with stomach issues and in the afternoon he had a fever. When I called the doctor for an appointment, they told me they would give him a mask to wear. Oh, boy, I thought, here we go. Well, I took him to the doctor today, and they didn't give him a mask; the verdict was it was probably a stomach virus. He's feeling much better now. WHEW!! And we thought he was going to miss Halloween.

5. Speaking of Halloween, I'm curious to know whether or not you celebrate it, and if so, how? If not, do you have an alternative? We have always celebrated Halloween by dressing up the kids, carving pumpkins, and going trick-or-treating. The last few years our kids have chosen the creepiest, freakiest costumes they can find and this year is no exception. Our neighborhood is somewhat quiet, and we've never had many trick-or-treaters come to our house. When we're out and about we don't see too many other people. (All the neighbors are quite generous with the treats, though!) Last year, we went with friends to another part of town where people decorate their houses to the hilt, and sit out on their porches (in coustume) and hand out candy. There were lots and lots of ghosts and goblins milling about, and we had a blast. Our feeling about Halloween is that it's good harmless fun. I know there are many who disagree, but as long as we keep our children grounded in the faith, and make sure we teach them that ghosts and goblins are imaginary, and it's NOT ok to carry around REAL bloody axes and knives, we'll keep on trick-or-treating.


























6. With Halloween comes the carving of the pumpkins, and we always wait until the last minute because frankly, I'm not a big fan of getting my hands in all that goop. Plus my jack-o-lanterns don't look all that great. I will say that last year we had fun carving these:


Unfortunately, our dog ate one of the stars off of the elephant. Figures. I wonder if we had made an Obama O, would she have eaten that?

7. Don't forget All Saints Day on Sunday and All Souls Day on Monday! The kids' school is having an All Saints Day parade Monday. Curly is dressing up as St. Isidore of Seville (green robe left over from when they dressed up as shepherds for a Christmas pageant), and Moe will be St. Francis (brown robe from the other shepherd costume.) Again, easy-peasy.

Have a great weekend!