Think before you bake

Okay, it's 10:00 PM and I was attempting to bake a cake.  The final outcome is yet to be seen.   It's really not the easiest of endeavours.  It's one of those doll cakes.  The cake is a huge skirt and then you stick the barbie doll head and torso into the cake and decorate to your desire.  That is if you don't start your house on fire first.  I'm having a flash back to the last time I tried to do this and apparently something similar happened.  I am not sure why I didn't leave myself a note saying REMEMBER DON'T OVERFILL THE CAKE MIX OR ELSE.  You can be sure I have it written on the box now!  I was confused when the cake mix did not quite fill the pan.  Why doesn't it give a warning "WILL GROW to 1000 times it's size in just fifty minutes."   Within fifteen minutes smoke started pouring out of the oven.  I opened it up and the batter was just pouring over the top of the "skirt mold" like a bubbling volcano.  The cake mix on the bottom of the oven floor was black and had that red center and resembled molten lava as it slid out the oven door.  I tried to shovel some of it out but I couldn't breath so I had to shut the door, turn on the fans, and get some air moving.  The whole house stinks.  I remember something similar happening the year we tried to sell our house.  I heard it was good to put cookies in the oven to make your house smell welcoming.  Apparently certain aromas somehow manipulate people into buying your home.  The only problem was I forgot about the cookies.  By the time I got things cleaned up the house had the fragrance of burnt cookies mixed with some sort of fruity bathroom freshener.  Needless to say we never got any offers.  

Maybe I need to rethink my baking endeavours, however, it is so much cheaper to make your own cake, unless you end up making extras or end up having to buy a new oven, or house for that matter.    Well, at least the cake isn't burnt it's just the oven that's on fire.  Oh, did I mention that since I THOUGHT I was short for Hannah's cake mix, I used Henry's cake as the filler.  So now Henry's cake is the molten lava at the bottom of my oven!   I'm not really sure what I am going to do about that.  I wanted to make Henry a dairy free cake because of his intolerance to milk so I bought a special mixture.  The party with our family isn't until tomorrow night so maybe I will try again in the morning.  In the mean time, in and attempt to save the skirt from utter ruin, I shoveled the excess mixture out into a glass bowl.  It has been returned to the oven and is cooking amongst the smoke and embers, I wonder if it will taste more like smoke than chocolate?  Well maybe that could be a new flavor, "smoked chocolate."

On a different note Henry has his one year check up tomorrow morning and Hannah has her six year check up.  I can't believe I have a six-year-old and that Henry is one!  He has been doing really well since we've been home and I want to thank all of you for your prayers.  I've started feeding him purees and soft finger foods and found out that he LOVES salmon!  He coughs when he eats and always sounds like he needs to clear his throat, however it seems that once he coughs he does sound better.  This is different than before we had the Nissan and G-tube, he used to just sound terrible all the time.  This was due to him drinking the thin liquids and aspirating.  For the past few months we have put all liquids through his G-tube.  I am going to talk with the pediatrician tomorrow about starting him on thickened liquids in a sippy cup.  He is over the cold he must have had and over all he is much improved.  He loves to eat and has picked up some sign language in the last week and it is so adorable.  He is so proud of himself when he signs "more" and "thank you."   I am excited to see what he weighs tomorrow and if he's grown any taller.  I will update you all and post some pictures of the Birthday party and final outcome of this insane cake if I can salvage it!