Still Waiting

When I think of Easter I think of spring. I imagine brightly colored Easter eggs nestled in the green grass. I imagine children hunting for the freshly dyed eggs in their Easter outfits. Easter baskets come to mind... Snow? No. There is no snow in my Easter picture.

We had the eggs.

We had the outfits.

We had the baskets.

We also had snow - lots of snow.

So, Easter has come and gone and I am still waiting for spring.

Life is Good

Life is good when you see random acts of kindness. Today, Laney was being a pill because I would not (could not) pick her up. Owen's teacher Mrs. Heather saw her flailing about, came over, picked her up and took her to hunt for eggs after school today. At 11:30am it had been a long day for her too, but she took the time and really made a difference in my day.

You know life is good when your 2 year old and 4 year old come home from hunting eggs at preschool and decide to refill them and hide them for their big brother.

Life is good when a 6 year old plans a surprise with his dad and remembers to make a card for his mom at school.

Life is really good when your husband brings home a Jamoca Almond Mud Pie from Baskin Robins (my all time favorite) and announces we are going out to dinner to celebrate one year of blogging.

I can't believe it has been one year already! In all honesty, I forgot. I knew it was sometime in March that I started this whole crazy blog, but things seem to be more hectic than usual here. Maybe it is the whole Easter thing in March? It seems rather fitting that the blog started with my first fondant cake made from scratch and is now featuring one from Basking Robins. What can you do? There are only so many hours in the day and less with the whole time change thing and man are we feeling it here.

A lot has changed in one year and I am sure it will change lots more in the year to come. The beauty of SPLANEYO is I can share and remember it all - the good, the bad and the ugly. Anymore life is chaos, life is constant change, and life really is good.

Eggstraordinary Place Markers

Last week the kids had a day off from school, so I put them to work painting these inexpensive wooden eggs I found at Michaels.

They had a great time and we only had a few eggs topple over while painting - we had a bit of a mess when one went careening onto the floor and rolled across the room, but since we were using washable paint it was no problem. Laney was the most into the project and each of her eggs were painted so many times that they all have a brownish purpley gray color to them.

I used some of those rub-on letters to put names on the eggs. This was my first experience with these things and they were really helpful, especially on a curved surface. You can certainly write on them with a pen if you don't have the rub-ons.

These would also look cute at each place setting in a little basket like this:

I went with the shaved wood and cellophane bags:

I also made another version using ribbon and glue. This would be a good project for older children because it is a bit tricky getting the ribbon right on the curved surface.

The possibilities are endless. Ours are all ready for Sunday - hopefully you will have time to make some too.

Jam and Bread

Saturday we celebrated my step father John's birthday. He happens to be the biggest jam/marmalade/preserves eater I have met. I am not sure many mornings have passed that he has not had a slice of toast with marmalade on it for breakfast. When I say marmalade on it, I mean really heaped on - it is more like he eats toast with his marmalade. So, it was this love affair that led Sam to the idea of making a jar of jam for his cake. We added some toast to go with it and we had our cake, actually cakes.

The jar was made from sour cream chocolate cake with sour cream frosting. I baked the cake in a sheet pan and then Sam cut out the six layers by hand. I frosted them and stacked five of them up to create the jar. Skewers were used to keep the layers from sliding. The last layer was set aside for the lid.

I used marshmallow fondant to create the jar and painted it using a mixture of pigment and vodka. The label and price tag,

the bar code

and the nutritional information (this was a must in Spencer's eyes)

were made by using edible markers on rolled fondant.

Sam made the "toast" by cutting out the bread shapes from a vanilla sour cream cake and dabbing the sour cream chocolate frosting on the sides to make it look more like bread.

The butter was made from fondant and then we used some gel frosting to give it the sheen of melted butter.

John was very pleased with his cake and Sam and I had fun making it together.

Florida Fun

No, we were not eaten by alligators (just being swallowed by life), but we very well could have been...

These big guys were living in a pond in front of the resort and were a great source of entertainment for the children. I must admit, I had my face pressed against the glass for a fair amount of time too. Maybe it is because my mother made me watch Crocodile Dundee 48 times as a girl, but I just don't think I could live peacefully around those guys.

Anyway, I can't believe I am saying this, but we had a nice time at Disney World. I knew the overall trip would be special because of the added company of my mom, John and my grandparents, but vacationing at the Magic Kingdom? I imagined I would be as eager to leave as these guys were to get off this ride.

The idea of battling crowds, waiting in lines and a lot of mediocre food in is not an ideal vacation in my mind, but the crowds were very manageable, we did not wait in many lines and we only had one so-so meal before we got the whole thing figured out. Thanks to the lack of lines, Spencer was able to ride the the Magic Carpet ride at least 8 times.

The only disappointing thing about the trip was the weather - we had one typical Florida day and the rest were 50's, wet and cold - but, even with the less than perfect weather we had a great time and the kids are already planning their return visit. It's A Small World was a favorite and the level of distractibility to take a photo shows how it ranked with each of the children. Laney could not stop smiling and requested a second ride - she wouldn't even look at me, Owen was entertained and very thankful he was no longer on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride - I got the face, but the eyes were still on the ride, and Spencer thought it was a catchy tune, but was dreaming about the Indy Cars and a few more Magic Carpet rides - the courtesy smile.

If there is anyone out there planning a trip, the place to eat in the Magic Kingdom is the Main Street Bakery. They have good sandwiches and tasty treats. We stayed at the Mike Ditka Lighthouse Key Resort and Spa and it was great for our large group and close (about 10 - 15 minutes) to the park - we stayed in the 4 bedroom suite and it had 3 bathrooms, plasma screen TVs in each room, a big common area/ dining room, a full kitchen and a laundry room. There is a grocery store just down the road, so we ate breakfast and dinners in the suite - I am all for a meal at home when the alternative is bland, boring or just plain bad. The best part, the rates were very reasonable.