Caroline's White Cake With Chocolate Frosting

Caroline is six.  Don't you think it's high time she should know how to bake a cake and make frosting? 

She certainly thinks so. 

So first thing this morning - 7AM - we put our aprons on and got to baking.  She made me promise that she could do the WHOLE THING by herself.  Luckily enough for me, I didn't have a single thing planned this weekend, so at 7am we went at it.  Well, she did.

I tried to show her how to crack the eggs to separate them and she kept breaking the yolks.  She looked me straight in the eye and said "If you just leave me alone and let me do it, they won't break."  She didn't break a single one after I let her be!

Normally I don't let the kids get too dirty in the kitchen and make a big mess, but she wanted to feel what the yolks felt like.  :)  She said they were squishy.

Our next door neighbor Megan came over right when it was time to taste the batter.  She has great timing!

Semi-sweet chocolate for the frosting, ready to go into the food processor.

I've tried several different methods of melting chocolate that are much quicker than this. Using a double broiler seems to produce a better consistency though.

My son happened to wander over when the frosting was done.  He has good timing too!

Don't you just want to eat this?  Click Here for the frosting recipe.

Ever wonder how people frost a chocolate cake and never seem to get any of the frosting on their cake plate?  This is how: cut up four squares of parchement paper and overlap them so no part of the cake plate is exposed.  When the cake is set, then pull out the parchment and voila!

Sampling her work....

Click Here

for the recipe

We made a special trip to the store to get ice cream for her.  *Of course, she added sprinkles.**  it's just not finished without sprinkes!

Valentine's Day at School

I have been making the kid's Valentines for a few years now, instead of buying them.  This year was a tad overwhelming though as both kids have *30* kids in their class.  That's 60 homemade Valentines that require multiple steps to make each one.  Good times, I know.

Using my handy new paper trimmer, I cut some red and pink cardstock.  It took five batches of Rice Krispie treats to get 30 individual hearts cut out with a heart shaped cookie cutter.  Luckily, the treats are super sticky and stuck right to the paper all by themselves.

I was also tapped to make some cookies for my son's class.  I am sure each kid noted how long it took me to make all these cookies, right?

I tried hard to find an idea that wasn't too girly for my son's Valentines.  Obviously I didn't succeed.  Let's face it, Valentine's Day in general is pretty girly. 

This project was incredibly simple, just a little time consuming.  I found a heart punch that I used to cut out the cardstock heart shapes.  Each flower has four hearts.  Then, I took a hole punch and punched a hole in the bottom of each heart.  I lined up the holes and then glued them down.  Dum-Dums were the suckers that I used, but Blow Pops would work too.  At the last minute I added some hot glue to the Dum-Dums to make sure they didn't come loose.

How cute are these?!

Christmas Goodies

How great are these handsome little men?  I used some of my baker's twine to tie little 'scarves' around their necks.  Very simple, yet very festive!

I made these cookies for the kids that were coming over to my house on Saturday evening.

The kids just loved to see their names on cookies!  How cute are they all lined up??  Okay, we forced them to line up and smile.  *HA HA HA*

I made these for Jacob's class 'Holiday Party' this week.

It just wouldn't be Christmas time without a ginger bread house!

Caroline's learning to use the piping bag at 6 years old...  I didn't learn until just this year!  My mother was not big on baking.

Homemade marshmallow!  My first try at marshmallow and they turned out really cute, and were so yummy!

Do you have any Christmas goodies to share?

Kids' School Papers

If your home is anything like mine, the papers that the kids bring home take it over!  No one told me that there would literally be a mountain of paperwork that comes home with *each* kid.  Guess how many pieces of paper the average child will bring home from one school year alone?  Well, I looked it up... and it's 900 pieces.  900 pieces!  Times that by two kids and that's nearly 2000 papers in just one year.  Wow.

When my youngest started Kindergarten this year, in the first month alone, the papers had overwhelmed me.  Not to mention, the dates that I had to remember for this and that, the homework that had to be returned the next day, plus the homework that was due the end of the week.  Oh yeah, don't let me forget about the sports schedules *for two kids*, or what the school happened to be serving for lunch on any random day.

I stared at all their paperwork for a few days until I figured it out! 

This entire system cost me $30!  The dry-erase calendar and cork board were $5 each at Walmart and the magazine bins were $10 each at Office Depot.  I used the 3M velcro to attach everything to the door. 

Only school related information goes on the calendar.  It's nice this way, so my regular family calendar doesn't get too cluttered.  The cork board holds all the miscellaneous stuff that I need to keep track of...lunch menus, master school calendar, any sports sign up sheets, etc.

When the kids come home from school, they know to take everything out of their backpacks and put it in their own bin.  They were very excited to draw some pictures to make the space their own!

This was the best thing that I've done for myself in years!  All the paperwork is in ONE place, and off the counters.  Now, I can go to one spot and see everything I need to.

My favorite thing about this little station?  The door closes.  Bye bye papers!