Spring Sprung

Hey party peeps! How goes it??? I had a pretty good day here! I woke up at normal time, said prayers, and got kids ready for school. And out the door and to the bus. Eme was home, and I totally went back to bed. Because, even though I went to bed before 11 last night, I was exhausted. And I woke up a little before 9am. And I cleaned a little, then started to bake.

But first, I wanted to clean the kitchen. And I couldn't clean the counters until I cleaned the sink, because I needed to get my rag wet, and couldn't access the sink. LOL. But I needed to put away the dishes first, so that I could put the dirty dishes in. See how I get distracted so easily...

ANYWAY, I went to put the dishes away out of the dishwasher, and something was amiss. Water was still under the dishes. Sigh. Luckily, the load was clean. So I put the dishes away, and looked at the dishwasher. Yeah, NOT draining. So I ran another load, hoping to fix it. And organized the dirty dishes enough to get into the sink. And washed the counter. And washed all the big dishes that wouldn't fit into the dishwasher anyway. And started on the cakes.

First cake mix, split between 5 disposable circular cake pans. 2/3 cup in each pan. I made sure that I sprayed them a lot with non stick spray, and popped them in the oven. 5 at a time. For 13 minutes. And the cooked PERFECTLY. While they were cooking, I made up a 2nd cake mix (yellow), and filled 5 more pans. And took out the cooked ones, cooling them on racks, and put in the other 5. And while that batch was cooking, I made the icing.

It was cooked icing, and yeah, I BUTCHERED IT! If you can believe this, I missed the step where you add the sugar. Seriously. I remember thinking, hum, frosting with no sugar, strange, but I went with it. Yeah, SUCKS. But, it worked out ok.

So, I made up the icing (2 cubes butter, 1 can of evaporated milk, 1/2 cup cocoa powder), minus the 3 cups of sugar that was supposed to be there, and put about 1/4 cup in between each layer of cake. All 10 layers of it. And it soaked in, and hardened a little. And it was a little tippy. And goopy. But it smelled pretty good!

And then I ran out of icing, so I grabbed a can of chocolate fudge store bought frosting, and spread it all around the sides and the top. And Jim came in, and wanted to taste the icing. It had dripped on the counter. And he spit it out, saying it was nasty. Whaaaat? That's when I realized that I'd made it wrong...

I tasted it (but didn't swallow), and it WAS nasty. Unsweetened chocolate is what it tasted like... I wondered if it still tasted good, though. With the store bought frosting on the outside. Maybe the middle wouldn't taste too bad. So I sliced up a piece, and tried a few bites (not swallowing, again - ha!) It WAS good. The middle part was super moist and chocolaty, and the sweetness of the cake made the bitterness of the chocolate do-able. So, it was salvaged after all!

And after the cake was made, I started in on the tortellini soup. I chopped up the onions (2), and the green peppers (2), and some garlic, and sauteed it. Then added 8 cups of chicken broth, and some italian spices and 1 cut up sweet potato and 3 cut up tomatoes, and let it boil. Then when the sweet potatoes were tender, I added a pack of tortellini. And then 3 little tiny cut up zucchinis. And I transferred ALL of it to a big crock pot, and turned it on for about 30 minutes.

And then it was time to cut the boards. I'd bought 1x2x6's, and needed to cut them into 1x2x3's. So I measured out the lengths, and Jake helped me cut the boards. SO loud. Jake didn't like it, and went and found Nerf bullets and shoved them in his ears. hehe. Too funny!


And yes, Captain America, I put your saw back where it went :) And somewhere in there, we got Jim to the bus, and all of the stuff organized, and the truck loaded with supplies, and at 11:50am, I headed over to Kari's house.

Kari and I and Laurie and Maggie and Terra were there for lunch and crafts. There was a TON of yummy food, and I had fun playing with my friends. After lunch, we cut the cake. See, it looks good. People said that it still tasted pretty good. Not as sugary sweet, frosting overload, as some cakes. ha!


And then we started in on the boards. We took the 1x2x3, and covered it with fabric (most of us used white). And secured it with a staple gun. Oh yeah, LOVE my staple gun!

And then picked out ribbons. I'd bought some for Eme, and Terra brought a TON for people to use also. I picked out some purple to make a 2nd board. And found this CUTE hair clippy in Terra's box, and just had to try it on - LOL

We finished up the craft around 2:30pm, and all headed out. Maggie and I rushed off to get Jim and little Jake from the bus, then headed home. And between the bus stop and home, Jim managed to sneak over the back seat and dump over the cake in the back. Oh, I was MAD! No cake for Jim! It's not like he accidentally knocked it over. Turd bucket!

Eme was super excited about her jewelry holder, though. She picked this one :)

When I got home, I decided to call housing and try and get a work order in. I was thinking that they'd probably have someone come out on Monday. And yeah, she said that she could have someone over before 5pm. Whaaat? That's SUPER fast! And crap, my house was messy! hehe.

So Jake and Eme and I did a power clean. She was feeling SO much better. It's amazing what drugs will do - hehe. I moved the clean laundry pile to my room (so laundry man is back), swept all the rooms, picked up the stuff, and it was looking pretty good when the repair dude showed up. Sergio. He's pretty cool.

Tom and Joe showed up around that time, and I had everyone do their chores. It wasn't too hard, since I'd done most of them for them. I locked Joe and Jim outside (ha!) until the backyard was cleaned, and Sergio was done. My dishwasher was working JUST fine when he left. Thanks, Sergio! You're the best!

The kids had tortellini soup for dinner, and I had cheese and cucumber. And the kids had chocolate cake for dessert. And they played some electronics, and I hid in my room for a little while. Chatting with Andrea. She was on her way into town to go to a movie with a friend. So I was her driving chatting friend again.

I watched a movie on my laptop, and the kids did that they were doing, then it was time for them to go to bed. And Jake and Tom and I watched an episode or two of Chuck. And it's now 10:49pm. And I really wanna watch a movie, but I'm feeling SO tired. Maybe I'll just go to bed after this episode of Chuck. *yawns*

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Perfect, Sharon! Love the greens!