Soccer Ball Masterpiece

This is another blog about cake making so for those of you who are not interested go to the next post.

So I have wanted to try my hand at covering a cake in fondant like all those really cool looking cakes you see on TV lately. However, I really don't like the taste of store bought fondant and its really expensive for that matter. When Ronny told me we were hosting Charley's soccer party I decided to make a soccer ball cake. I have a cousin who is probably the most creative person I have ever met (Lauren that is you!) and saw that her husband made her a way cute birthday cake with fondant he made himself. So I searched the internet for a recipe that looked somewhat palatable. I came across one that is made out of marshmallows and powdered sugar. So I gave it a try and found that is was really easy to make (albeit very sticky), fun to play with, and it even tasted pretty good. So I borrowed my neighbors dome cake pans and cut out hexagons and pentagons from the finished fondant. I colored the fondant in the team colors as I was not in the mood to make black fondant.

Ronny tried to talk me out of making this cake a few times. I don't know if he doubted me as much as he wondered if the process would stress me out too much. In reality the cake was so much fun to make! It pretty much came together rather quickly and in the end I spent about $15 putting it all together. It was fun to watch the girls and their parents reaction when we told them the ball was actually a cake. I wonder what they thought it was? In August I will attempt to make an R2D2 cake for Joseph.

Another one bites the dust!

Yesterday was the last day of soccer for Charley and Joseph. Unfortunately both teams were blown away in their last games, thankfully the kids still had fun. The weather here decided to take an unexpected climb to the high 90's overnight so the kids were pretty worn out by the end of their game. With Ron being Charley's soccer coach we hosted an "end of the year" party for the team. We made pizza for everyone which made us very grateful our community room has a kitchen so that we could bake the pizza in a building with central air as opposed to our house. I made a soccer ball cake (more on that later) which the girls devoured in a matter of seconds and the girls and the parents enjoyed relaxing in a cool building. It was great fun!



Ronny has mixed feelings about the end. He really enjoyed coaching these girls and learned so much. Yet, he is happy to have time off for the time being. He is looking forward to coaching Joseph and Sam next year. The boys are pretty excited about that. Charley will move up to the next division and have longer games and more rules. We will see how that goes.

No vacation for Mom!

So after this last week of the huge amount of laundry stemming from our little experience with head lice and Joseph reverting back to wetting the bed every night for some reason, and the need for one of the children needing a clean uniform for some event, I decided that yesterday I deserved a day off from laundry. One day, that was all I was willing to take. Here's what I saw when I went to do today's laundry. I swear the laundry baskets have some sort of gremlin virus that instantly multiplies when it gets wet!

Charley's Softball Debut

Here is the picture of Charley I promised in her new softball sweatshirt. She played 3rd base yesterday and did a great job. She took a hopper in the neck but managed to stop it and tag her base. She got hit both times she was up at bat. We are still working on catching and throwing but she is doing great!

Sometimes the Worst Gifts come in Small Packages

Last Sunday we were sitting in church and Sam quietly laid his head in my lap and told me I could touch his hair. For those of you who know about Sam's sensory issue with his head you will know that this was somewhat of a breakthrough for Sam. So I started to run my fingers through his hair and was telling him how much I liked the blond streaks he had. I looked a little closer and saw something a little odd. I took a closer look and saw strange little dots in his hair. When I tried to get one out I found it was rather sticky. I knew this was not a good thing and although I had never seen lice before, I had a pretty good hunch this was it. I leaned over to Ronny and told him I think Sam has head lice. What I didn't realize at that moment was how much work lay ahead of us.

So for those of you who have not had this little experience in your house, know that it is inevitable, expensive, and very frustrating. Pray you catch it early before it spreads and then pray for strength as it is a long haul! If one person in the family has it everyone gets treated whether you think they have it or not. It turns out Sam and Charley both had it but we caught it before it spread to anyone else.

Ronny was sent to the store to buy the shampoo, gel, and combs. (When it comes to head lice the ox is in the mire on Sunday!) Man I tell you, I plan to take out stock in the RID company because this stuff is pricey. The next several hours of last Sunday was spent washing everyones hair with this insecticide shampoo, combing out everyones hair with the gel and combs, striping every bed of pillow, sheets and blankets, then gathering anything and everything that may have touched someones head in the last couple weeks and boiling them, finding every hat and running them through the dryer, and bagging every stuffed animal in the house. So for 6 people, 1 of which is a young girl with long hair, and 3 other young children you can imagine how much work that was. We finished combing Charley's hair out at midnight that Sunday. Ronny was kind enough to read to us while I combed her hair ( it took a couple hours to get through it). Then Ronny had to comb through my hair which took at least another hour. We managed to crawl into bed about 1:30 a.m. knowing we had a mountain of laundry to tackle the next day. I should have taken a picture of the laundry pile, it was taller than the washing machine!

I called the schools the next day to inform them of the situation and to let them know the kids would not be there. It was then we found out that lice was going around in two of them. Charley's school had 7 kids in her grade alone sent home the previous week with it. What happened to the letter they were supposed to send home? Needless to say I'm a little annoyed with this gift someone blessed us with. I then went through the process of cutting the boys hair. All of Sam's beautiful golden streaks lay gone. If you've read the previous hair cutting stories you will understand why I cried when it was Ben's turn. All his baby hair gone. He looks so much older and nothing like my baby boy.

So we got through this week pretty much in a daze. The instructions on the shampoo say we have to retreat in 7-10 days to kill the bugs that were eggs last week. This morning I went through Charley's hair again (I've done this every day this week) and found 2 more bugs. Grrrrr! Can you guess what we will be doing today?