Mid-October Merriment

CAKENSTEIN:  October means a bunch of birthdays in the family, including Annabelle, who turned 11 this year. 

She gets to choose what kind of cake she wanted, and this go-round she opted for a robot shaped cake based on a character created by singer songwriter Morgan Taylor, whom she, CJ, and a few other lucky Seattle kids took a wonderful week-long workshop with this past summer. 

Here's a video all about the cakey monster. 


The song calls for a pink cake, and I recalled pink champagne cakes of years gone by. (I think they were a pretty big deal in the '80s!)  That sounded good to Annabelle, and so she popped some bubbly (to be used as an ingredient in the cake batter). Maybe I'll buy her a bottle of pink champagne for her birthday 10 years from now. :)

We made six little layers of cake, ranging in diameter from six inches for the base to the size of a tuna can for the head.

Rice Krispie treats were necessary for Cakenstein's arms and for his detonator/energizer switch. 

We made a whole lot of gray fondant, and a little red (for his cherry eyes), and a bit of blue (for the cakey babies' blueberry eyes).

We baked and built the whole thing in one day, pretty much. Not bad for a multi-tiered cake monster with cakey babies. :)

PATCHY:  Mid-October also means it's about time to be hitting up a local pumpkin patch. For several years running, we've tried to go to different places. This year's new-to-us destination was Dr. Maze's Farm, in Redmond, WA, just about a half hour east of Seattle.

Dr. Maze's was founded in 2010, and it's part of a group of neighboring farms that created The South 47 Farm, which works to protect farmland and promote sustainable farming.

 The moment we pulled into our parking spot, I started peering out the windows and asked, "What's that sound?" knowing full well that it was the noise of legions of winged creatures.

I can honestly say in my 50 years, I've never heard that much bird 'song' in one place, at one time. I found it rather frightening.

CJ, who is fortunate enough not to have seen Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds," didn't seem frightened at all. Lucky boy.

With a bit of trepidation (at least on my part), we approached the admission stand. 

There were photo opps aplenty at Dr. Maze's.  The kids took a ride on a pumpkin truck ... 

and they got their American Gothic on.

CJ was a crazy driver of a virtual tractor. He sat there wishing he had on an Oculus Rift.

Once we headed into the maze, there were questions and puzzles awaiting. 

 The kids and Christian never could solve this one where they were supposed to start on red, then go green and then yellow, in that order and work your way to the end. 

 We did, however, easily find the end of the maze.

Outside, the kids played giant Jenga.

And they made some music.

Speaking of music, there was an entertaining animatronic chicken chorus.

CJ was a huge fan. After the rest of us had moved on, I caught him over by the coop, doing the chicken dance. :) 

There were ponies to ride bareback.

It was big fun for the big kids. 

I sure am glad they don't think they're too old and cool for this stuff. :)