Joshua’s cannon design was great and really launched his hand carved cannon balls.  Wesley and Jillian both loved playing with it before it went into the cake.

Then I needed to put it in the cake…

Wesley wanted blueberry cake, so I found a blueberry bunt cake recipe and made it in 9×13 pans.

Here is how I created it:

Joshua thought to reuse this blue basket for the base. He then cut a piece of thin wood to fit in the basket for a strong base for the cake.

Here is the sculpted cake with a blueberry cream cheese filling between the layers.

I had to use a lot of skewers in the cake to keep the layers together.

I put on a thin crumb coating, then Joshua and I put in the cannons. The green thing is the launching pad taken from a game we have called FroggO.

The stern of the cake ship.

The bow of the cake ship.

The "front" of the cake with the cannons facing out.

Then I used brown gel coloring to make the cream cheese frosting brown.  Blue water was added then ocean animals were glued onto the basket to make it look like it is really in the sea.

The front of the cake.

The sails are made out of chopsticks and fancy paper.

The stern of the ship. The rigging, wheel and ladder are made with melted chocolate.

"W"'s and upside down "w"'s and the #6

The back side of the cake.

There is even a plank...with shark infested waters.

The bow of the ship.

Close up of the bow.

Hours spent:
Building the cannon & carving the balls – 2 hours
Baking the cake and making the frosting – 3 hours
Carving & decorating the ship – 5 hours
Total hours spent: 10. 

 

Today we picked at Larsen Lake Blueberry Farm in Bellevue.  We would probably go there again – the berries were close to the parking lot and they had real bathrooms.

We took Sarah with us today.  She is in kindergarten with Wesley (and she was also in his preschool class).

They are ready to GO!

Sarah suggested we stop for another picture on the way...

We found a row to pick on.

They got right to work!

Showing me her favorite berry.

He could not decide - so he chose two.

Jillian just did it because the others did it too.

He was very proud of his way to use both hands.

We finally made it to the “lake”.

A few more pictures with the berries and the lake in the background:

So much love!

Such good friends!!

After picking for an hour – they were done.

And I picked 1.17 pounds.  And the price was really good too – 2.39 pounds = $2.98.

We really did have a good time!

Yummy! Let's eat them.

 

and it’s Wesley’s first day of school!

Hooray! I am a kindergartener now!!

So before school we had a big photo session:

Then we loaded into the car and drove to the school:

In the parking lot heading over to the school.

Waiting to cross the street.

Let's go in!

Waiting for their teacher in the lunch room.

At his cubby.

Unpacking his folder.

Yep...he has the top shelf cubby.

Working on a coloring page while everyone gets settled.

Joshua and Jillian watch from the other side of the room.

Joshua takes a picture with his phone.

Jillian comes over to see what Wesley is working on.

Then it is time to go to the carpet. The teacher asks them to stand up and push in their chairs. Maybe 1/4 of the class is able to follow that direction (way to go Wes).

They sit and listen to "The Night Before Kindergarten" by Natasha Wing.

At the end of the book the kids wave goodbye and give hugs to their families - so Wesley got to do the same.

Jillian was the 1st to get a hug.

Dad...

Then Me.

Joshua, Jillian and I then went home.  It was strange driving away thinking about him in that big school “all alone”.  A tear did come to my eye and it made me think about how fast he has grown up!

We had 2 hours at home before we had to go back and get him.  (He is in school 2 hours and 40 minutes.)

Joshua was awesome with Jillian - making her feel loved and special. Here they are reading - 11 books together (she had 21 more ready in a pile for him to read too). Before that they played games in her room and they even started a game of memory before we had to go.

We arrived early to pick up Wesley – good thing too, because they came out early. 

Waiting for his teacher to call his name to leave.

He was so excited to see us!

There he is - done with his 1st day of kindergarten!!!

Then we went to get lunch to celebrate…

And what would be the best way to finish off such a great day…. ice cream of course. 

And she did not want to miss a drop of that ice cream!

 

The Strawberry Hello Kitty Cake

All of our yummy snacks.

All set up for our pin the bow on Hello Kitty game.

Goodie bags for the kids. They included: a Hello Kitty coloring book that I made, bubbles and strawberry milk straws.

We had tattoos.

All of the kids put some on.

In the backyard we played catch

and horseshoes.

Then we played "Pin the Bow on Hello Kitty"

Wesley is ready to go...

Here is where everyone placed their bows.

Next we opened gifts - and boy was Jillian loved!

this one is from Wesley.

Blowing out her candles.

Super yummy cake!

Most the kids who celebrated with Jillian.

Then Jillian opened one last gift... a big kid bike and a new helmet!

With Yaya, Papa and Aidan.

With Grams and Aunt Ashley

Our attempt at a family photo...

Here first ride on her new bike.

Happy Birthday Jillian.  You are one lucky girl.

And thank you to everyone who came to celebrate with us.  Jillian has been talking non-stop about her “Special Day” and how much she loved it!

 

Wesley grated the Parmesan cheese for the filling.

After the filling was made we started on the dough for the ravioli. Nothing but flour and egg yolks. Wesley was really excited to make his flour “volcano” and then fill it with eggs.

Jillian and Wesley mixed the dough with their fingers. Needless to say, they had fun.

Wesley doing his best to knead the very stiff dough. I had to take over after a bit to get it the right texture.

The egg yolks gave the finished dough a nice yellow color.

After resting the dough we divided it and rolled out as thin as possible. We got it as thin as possible, but it was still a bit thicker than I would have liked.

The kids put a teaspoon of filling on the dough every few inches and then painted water along the edges to help them stick together.

Jillian really like pushing in the dough together to separate the individual ravioli.

The pastry cutter gave us nice edges.

We probably should have gotten 36 ravioli, but came away with about 2 dozen. Too big, too thick, or both…you decide.

To go with the pasta I baked some Pugliese and made a quick homemade sauce. Amber made a side salad and we had a great homemade Italian dinner. The kids ate basically none of it (except the bread, they love homemade bread), but I think it was one of the best meals we’ve had in a while. A ton of work, but fun and really fulfilling.

 

Our decorations

Jillian's Ready

Wesley's Ready

Trying to cut a gumball in half.

Taking a break from decorating for a little snack...

Even Redmond got some icing.

What a mess we made!

Jillian's house - front view

She wanted a dog.

Jillian's house - side 1

Jillian's house - back

Jillian's house - side 2

Wesley's house - front view

Wesley's house - side 1

Wesley's house - back

The sled Joshua made for Wesley's house.

Wesley's house - side 2

The kids waited a whole 24 hours to eat parts off.  They would have eaten it sooner – but they wanted to show Papa and Yaya.

 

Apparently Corning made and sold these 20″ long tubes in the 1970′s. The date on my instruction sheet is June 1977.  Most of the posts say they were really popular and everyone had one “back in the day”. But, since they only sold them for a few years, I’d guess they weren’t really that popular.  It came with a full two year warranty, not that it will do me any good now.

The Bake-a-Round instruction sheet comes with a number of bread recipes (you can download a PDF of the instructions I created below).  It seems like the key is to avoid recipes that are sugary because it will carmelize and stick to the glass, and frankly you’ll never be able to get it out of the tube.  Instead of using an untried recipe I decided to make the white sandwich bread from Reinhart’s Crust and Crumb, because it is one of our favorites. And it has so much butter in it I figured it would slide right out.

I made a 1lb loaf and used the suggested waxpaper technique to load the dough into the tube. My instructions actually have a typo (2″ of wax paper). I looked at instructions from Neufie.com which made more sense (2′ of wax paper). It worked well, but between the buttered tube and the butter in the bread I probably could have simply slipped it in. I gave it a squish from both ends (again, per the instructions), capped the ends with plastic wrap and let it rise. The small 1lb loaf I used never filled the entire tube and in hindsight I could easily have gone with 1 1/2 lbs of dough.

The finished cooked loaf still in the Bake-a-Round:

Getting it out was a little tricky.  You have to maneuver the hot glass tube out of the hot metal holder and then tap the end of the tube with a potholder to get the bread to slide out. I did it though without any help or burned fingers. The bread had a nice even crust all around the loaf.

An unexpected side benefit is the phallic nature of the loaf. I hadn’t noticed, by my mom did!

Gallery with lots of photos including box, tube, bread and instructions.

Download a copy of my instructions as a PDF: Bake-a-Round Instructions (131)

 

This morning Jillian and I made the bread.  We used our typical recipe to make a couple of loaves of white sandwich bread.  The recipe is easy and really tasty (as you might expect at 1/4 cup of butter per loaf).

Jillian adding the butter (not the homemade stuff)

Once the bread was all mixed and kneaded Wesley and I got to work on the butter.  We ended up using heavy whipping cream that had been ultra-pasteurized.  Apparently there is a bit of variance about what exactly is called heavy cream vs. heavy whipping cream. What it really comes down to is that you want the highest percentage of fat you can find with as little pasteurization as possible.  The more it is pasteurized (ultra) the longer you have to mix it and the less buttermilk you will have. Even still ours worked just fine.

Wesley adds 2 cups of heavy whipping cream and 1/2 tsp salt.

Wesley was in charge of the mixer.  He really liked running it and made less mess than he could have, but still splattered a bit of cream around.

Fun, but a little loud (and messy)!

The cream when we first started mixing.

Aerial view of mixing in action.

After maybe five minutes or so the cream started getting thick and foamy (like you’d expect from whipping cream) and then started to break down into chunky pieces and a thin white liquid separated out. The liquid is the butter milk, which had we wanted to we could have saved.

The butter and buttermilk separating.

Once the buttermilk separates out you get to have some real fun.  At this point we squished the butter together with our hands into a ball.  Then put the whole bowl, butter included into the sink and ran cold water into it.  We kept squishing the butter together and letting the buttermilk get washed away.  Unfortunately our tap water (being summer in Texas) was kind of warm and the butter was a little soft.  We added some ice cubes which seemed to help.

Squishing the butter together and rinsing off the buttermilk.

Super buttery fingers and hands and arms and shirts and ...

When we were done we’d turned the two cups of cream into about a half cup of very soft butter.  We put it in the fridge to harden and wait for the bread to be done.

Our finished product.

A few hours later the bread came out of oven and had cooled enough to be cut.  It was still warm and steamy and the butter was icy cold.

Our homemade bread topped with our homemade butter (and some store bought pears).

And how was it?  Delicious.

Worth the effort!

Our homemade butter won’t last as long as store bought before it spoils.  Of course I doubt it will last long enough to get the chance.

 

Baking the cake: I added blue and green to the cake to make it look like water.

This is what I stared out with.

The white cake was not level, so I cut strips of the chocolate cake to even it out.

Frosting cakes in Texas is hard, the frosting is so warm. So I gave it a crumb coating and stuck it in the fridge for 15 minutes - then I was able to frost it easily.

I did the sides first: I used brown frosting on the sides then covered it with brown colored sugar crystals and chocolate rocks. Then I frosted the top with blue, added "waves" and then blue colored sugar crystals to help the "water" look shiny.

Working on the shell.

And then there is the duck part of Joshua’s design.  When I was at the cake store, I found the perfect little candles.  So 2 candle ducks are catching a ride on the turtle’s back while on his swim in the pond:

Top view

The Ducks

Side 1

All done!

Here she is saying "TWO" and pointing to the duckies.

Happy 2nd Birthday Jillian Rose!  I am so glad you loved your cake.

All of the turtle cake picture: http://flickr.com/gp/hunterji/eSc4h7

 

Wesley had been eating his snack for a bit, when he said that he made a guy – complete with hair, eyes, a nose and a mouth.

He was very proud of this!