Pop! Goes the Cake

AND IT CONTINUES: I do believe this was day 3 of celebrating Annabelle's 7th birthday. Today's celebration took the form of lil round balls of cake on a stick, also known as cake pops.

Interesting creations, cake pops are made by baking a cake, letting it cool, crumbling it up, mixing frosting into the cake crumbs until it's like Play-Doh, then rolling that doughy mixture into whatever shape, freezing 'em, embedding sticks in them (using melted candy coating to help them stay), letting them dry/freezing them again and then dipping the whole dealio into melted candy coating. It's a lot of steps and a lot can go wrong.

We managed to produce a few dozen happy faces, eye balls and Kirbys of Nintendo fame.

The timing worked out nicely for taking the cake pops in, as today was "pizza Wednesday" at the kids' school. Once a month, some super nice volunteers bring in some Costco pizza to those who have pre-ordered it. And so, Annabelle enjoyed her pizza in a boat in the middle of the library today. Good times. :)

SPOTTY BLOGGER: I noticed this evening that there's something wrong with Blogger. There are lots of missing photos from past posts. That's rather disconcerting. Who knows where/why they went and when/if they'll be back. : /

BOB & WEAVE: This morning we did some science class homework. The kids continue their unit on fabrics and we've been studying about how fabrics compare to one another, including hwo tightly they're woven.

By trying to deconstruct some swatches they'd been given, they found that gauze was super easy to pull apart, while felt was nearly indestructible.

This afternoon in class, the kids got to use lengths of yard to make their own weaves.

PATIENCE, GRASSHOPPER: I saw something on the playground today that startled me. Something I haven't seen in, I do believe, 30 plus years. A real live grasshopper.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (a/k/a my childhood), I used to see dozens of grasshoppers daily. And though I lived in the country on acreage in my 20s and 30s, I saw nary a grasshopper. Dunno why. But today one came hopping across my path on the blacktop and I called the kids over like I'd found an eight leaf clover. Seriously, they've seen more bald friggin' eagles than they've seen grasshoppers in their lives. (In fact, I do believe this was their first grasshopper, while they've seen dozens of bald eagles.)

They happily hopped around behind the critter for a couple of minutes until it shook us.