Gotta catch the cake!

In a successful effort to make my birthday-party-throwing experience as low-stress as possible, Noel ordered the cake. As you can see, he did a great job. This is a chocolate cake with whipped frosting from Ed's Custom Bakery, a local outfit that has been providing our kids with birthday cakes since they were born.

The party was Pokemon-themed, and this cake, featuring Charizard, Turtwig, and Piplup, was a huge hit. As I brought slided pieces out of the kitchen and gave them to the attendees, I heard excited conversation: "You got a water piece! I hope I get a fire piece! Ooh, that one is mostly grass with some water!"

The cake itself is exactly what all adults attending kids' birthday parties hope for: light as air, delicate chocolate flavor, with a melt-in-your-mouth frosting that's the polar opposite of the heavy, sugary mortar that gets slathered onto grocery-store cakes.

I love how the edging frosting color changes with the grass, water, and fire stripes, and how those colors flow down the sides of the cake.  Having wonderful local businesses that do great work and make you feel like you've gotten special treatment -- what a bonus for a party into which we put the minimum of effort, really.  Thanks, Ed's!

Halloween commissions

There are so many wonderful things about having children.  Halloween costumes are not one of them, as far as I'm concerned.  I love taking pictures of my kids on Halloween, I love having them be excited about dressing up and going house to house.  But when it comes to putting together good costumes, the pressure really gets to me.  I don't feel like I have the time or creativity to do it well, but I don't want to send them out in something half-baked.

So when Noel reminded me that this is the weekend to get their costumes made, since I'm going to be gone for the next two weekends in a row, I didn't need the heads-up.  I've been thinking about little else all week.

Cady Gray wants to be a Poké Ball.  I would love to make her into a sphere, but the only way I could think of to do it involves sheets and sewing and stuffing and the serious possibility of it going very wrong.  So I'm thinking sandwich board ... styrofoam ... cardboard ... poster board, maybe poster paint ... fabric straps over the shoulder.

Archer wants to be a chess piece.  We have talked him into a rook, so there's not a whole lot of shape needed to the body of the piece.  Basically I'm thinking poster board wrapped around him held up with fabric shoulder straps, and a crenellated crown.  All white, no fuss.  But I started to think about where his arms would go and whether his legs would be able to move.  There may be some details that I'll have to figure out on the fly.  And that's what I dread.

Any suggestions for how to do these costumes, oh creative readership?

Words and pictures by

Cady Gray brought home a few pages of writing about her number one favorite subject -- Pokémon. Here they are, complete with illustrations.



I like to watch Pokémon. I have the Deluxe Pokémon handbook. Pokémon are fun to have, and their battles are exciting to watch! (P.S. I'm going to be a Pokéball for halloween.)




A Pokéball is Red and white a Great Ball is blue and white a Ultra ball is yellow and white and a Master ball is Purple




and white and each one has a button. Pokémon games are my favorite!