Blah blah blah Cake

Obviously I haven't been blogging much lately.  I haven't had much to say.  As grateful as I am for my children and husband, I haven't found them particularly humorous or charming lately.  I didn't dawn on me until yesterday, but I think we are all tired of being couped up inside waiting for warmer or drier weather.  Finally yesterday the conditions were good enough in the backyard to play outside, and my kids and a bunch of neighbor kids spent at least four hours outside running around and being free.  They built a fort-like structure with some logs from downed trees, played on the swing set, had some battles, and ran around without their coats on.  We both needed a day like that.

Today, everybody was off from school for President's day, so  I was nagged and nagged until I caved we decided to try to bake a LEGO Ninja cake, as featured in the most recent issue of Family Fun magazine.  (As an aside, I can't decide if I like Family Fun or not...it has some cute ideas, but mostly it makes me feel guilty for not having a blissfully conflict-free family with ample time for oodles of craft and baking projects.)

Here is the cake we were attempting to create -- it is a Ninja training course:

Here is our super-appetizing and most delicious cake.......I'm totally cracking up looking at this picture because it is just so awful.  We can't use any products with food dye, so we found a brand of natural-dye sugar crystals at Whole Foods for the blue and green.  The sandy substance on top of the icing is shredded wheat.  Mmmmm.....nothing beats shredded wheat and vanilla icing.  Or, carrots and vanilla icing for that matter.  On the plus side, the kids had fun.  And, if you scrap off the the shredded wheat, the cake tastes pretty good.  On the down side, the kitchen is t-r-a-s-h-e-d.

So, that's the "cake."

In other news we traveled to Lititz, PA, this past Saturday to try our hand at making pretzels at Sturgis Pretzel Factory.  As it turns out it was the Fire & Ice Festival in Lititz, so we got to see some ice sculptures,   and we grabbed lunch at the Spill the Beans cafe.  It was kind of odd because the 2-year old daughter of the cafe owners decided to eat lunch with us.  She was so clearly enjoying our company that her parents made her a grilled cheese and served it to our table.  She was a cute little girl....but it was pretty weird to have her eat with us, particularly since she was so young and needed meal assistance.  That's weird to let a stranger feed your kid, right?? I guess I looked trustworthy.....

Ice Pretzel

Ice Train

Ice Chair

Heaven's Rays in Lancaster County