Super Mario Cake

A little hobby I picked up a few years back was cake decorating. I enjoy challenges and for my own kids I spend months dreaming up 3-D cakes with layers and inlays and monograms and, well, you name it. Since the closing of our local bakery I have started helping out some friends when birthdays, weddings, and showers roll around. Some of you may remember the HUGE Browning groom's cake. Anyway, I was asked to make a Mario cake for one of my son's friends. I thought y'all might appreciate it.

 

 

Posted by DixieBelle @ 9:56 pm EDT | Permalink | 8 Comments

Long Live Shrinky Dinks!

Posted by DixieBelle @ 9:23 pm EDT | Permalink | 9 Comments

Portraits by Twisted

Our very own, and very talented Twisted, was kind enough to make a long time dream of mine come true.  He used charcoal and paper (which sounds like how you start the grill to me) to bring two photos of my kiddos to life!  He has already posted both of them in his blog, but he asked me for some pictures once they were hung.  I beg that you don't let my sorry photography detract from his amazing work. 

 

 

Posted by DixieBelle @ 12:37 pm EDT | Permalink | 3 Comments

Batman Birthday

Some time back my daughter decided that she wanted me to make her birthday cake for her.  I had absolutely no idea how, but I jumped in with both feet.  I have several cakes under my belt now, I guess you could say.     I've done a few for "pay."  As a matter of fact, I have a groom's cake to do in a couple of months.  Thank goodness I was able to duck the wedding cake gig.  In the spirit of the recent Batman release (fantastic movie-- easily the best superhero movie made), I thought I would show you my son's 5th birthday cake from last May.  It was my first attempt, completely self-taught, with fondant, so excuse the mistakes.  Anyway, completely designed, baked, and decorated by yours truly.

 

 

 

Posted by DixieBelle @ 10:21 pm EDT | Permalink | 15 Comments

My Non-Poopy Day

Non-poopy because there were no toilets and none of the 400 students, 3, 4, and 5 year olds, in the school could go poopy, or pee-pee, or hand washy, or water fountain sippy.  Yes, that's right, they told us at 8 am that the water was off for a bit and nobody could use the bathroom.  This was just as they finished guzzling down both juice and milk with breakfast and were beginning the first morning pee-pee dance for our daily scheduled first restroom break.  "I'm sorry, honey, the water isn't working."  I sang sweetly to them.  This was met with a blank stare, and the drawn-out whine, "But I've REEEEEEEALLLLLYYYY got to go!"  About this time our vice-principal comes over the intercom and announces:  "Teachers, please listen carefully.  When I call your name bring your class and your assistant to the front of the school.  Please move quickly."  What was this? A school evacuation?  Had there been a bomb threat?  A gas leak?  Soon the whispers of school gossip made its way to my room.  The plan is to call classes, 3 at a time to bus them to the nearest school to potty, and then return them to pick up another group.  "Adams, Bradley, Boston," a voice announces.  Geez, Louise!!!!  They are going in alphabetical order, and for those who don't know me well, my last name begins with "P."  What irony.

When our turn finally, and I do mean FINALLY, comes, I walk my class to the second set of restrooms in the building.  I go into the boys restroom to count how many stalls there are.  I come out, send in the first three boys and I say, "Boys, there are three doors in there.  I want you to each go to a different door and do any kind of potty you have to, or think that you may have to before the day is over."  I send them inside.  Soon, I hear discussion inside.  "Boys!"  I call out into the porcelain palace.  "Let's get done, others are waiting."  Soon I hear the level of noise raise to excited chatter.  "Fellas!"  I call, a bit more sternly.  Now the chatter raises yet another level.  I walk in to see three little boys, fully dressed, staring at the three urinals on the wall and one is saying, "Yeah, guys!  But I wonder how they go to the bathroom here at this school.  We don't use a waterfall."  "BOYS!,"  I choke out, through the laughter, "I said the DOORS!  Go to the doors!"  No teacher I know makes enough money to explain that.  (One little boy in another class got back on the bus and announced, "Hey!  Did y'all see that the hand washing sinks were on the FLOOR?"  Eeeewwwww!  Hope that teacher packed some serious sanitizer, cause we can't wash our hands without any water back at the ranch.)

The water was finally restored right before lunch.  A nutritious, and sanitary, I am sure, lunch of grilled cheese, five pickles, and half a banana served on a styrofoam plate.  We returned to our class just in time to hear the glorious announcement, "Teachers, you may now use the restroom."   The rush toward the bathroom of ill-mannered, pushing folks could only be described as a stampede.  And that was for the faculty bathroom.  Never, since the day that I announced that we could have cupcakes and chips before lunch, have I heard such excited little children.  "Now we get to go to the potty!" they cheered.

Exactly 20 minutes before the end of school, the water main breaks.  If you walk out my back classroom door it looks as if a spring has erupted and is now feeding a stream that runs into our neighbor's yard.  An up-scale bed and breakfast.  Hope no wedding receptions are planned this weekend.  It seems that our exuberance in flushing the toilets after emptying our bladders that had stretched from the size of our school superintendent's brain to the size of a honey-dew melon had broken the patch that was supposed to sit overnight to "set-up."  As we left school they were bailing water out in buckets hoping to re-patch the water main and let it cure overnight.  Never-mind the 70% chance of thunderstorms we have tonight.  Tomorrow promises to be just as exciting.

These are the days  that I chant, "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job. . . "

Posted by DixieBelle @ 5:38 pm EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments