Tuesday, December 28, 2010

A Bit About Tyler...

Tyler just had a birthday.  It kind of snuck up on me, as I have been sewing and crafting up a storm for Christmas!  Two days before his birthday, I realized I needed to make a cake! ACK!  Then, I promptly forgot, again.  I remembered the day before and since his birthday fell on a Sunday, I knew I had to make it then (11pm). 

Luckily, the LDS culture tends to be prepared to a fault.  I went down to my foodstorage room and was able to choose from a vast variety of cake mix flavors to find one that would make my easily pleased son happy.  I made several cakes and planned to cut them into various shapes to make a HUGE Ben 10 Omnitrix cake.

I envisioned something like this.

I got a little impatient since it was after midnight and removed one of the cakes before it was cooled and it totally fell apart.  I promptly put that in a ziploc bag and left it on the counter, redrew my design and continued on to make a marshmallow fondant covered, devil's foodcake, strawberry cheesecake ice cream cake.  It was not nearly so ellaborate as I had first envisioned, but it was yummy and I still have a forth of it in the freezer.  The kids and I just had a piece and it is still yummy 2 1/2 weeks later. 

I stayed up working on it until 2am.  Put it in the freezer, cleaned up and didn't give it another thought.  Until, the next morning when I came downstairs after the kids and Tyler was looking at my Ziploc bag of disaster. 

Tyler: "Mom, did my cake break?" 

Me: Yeah Bud. I'm sorry and I don't have time to make another one because I need to make cookies this morning for the dedication of the Stake Center tonight.   But I'll save some cookies for us and we'll have cookies and ice cream for your birthday.  K?

Tyler:  Okay, mom! (Oh, that kid can melt my heart!)

Me:  Sorry next time okay?

Tyler:  Mom?  What's that cake on the counter?

Oops.  I left out the middle part of the cake I cut out to make room for the ice cream. Hmm.

Me:  Oh, that was just something I had left over from another thing.  I was thinking I could ice it really fast with some of that frosting in the fridge (pre-made store bought yicky stuff - I'm not a fan of the tub frosting). 

Tyler: Well, Mom...can I do it?  (excitement building) CAN I MOM?  CAN I DO IT????

Me:  Um, yeah okay.  You decorate it.

Tyler:  Mom! Can you make the frosting green? I want to make it an omnitrix!! And what's this stuff? (the fondant I left out - good one Amy)  Can I use it?

Me: Sure.

He spends the next 40 minutes concocting his own omnitrix and decorating it with his Ben 10 toys. 
He loved his cake!  And who can blame him?  He did a fantastic job on it!  I was pretty proud of the job I did on his ice cream cake, but I am so much more proud of him and his fantastic attitude.  That kid is so positive I could just squish him!  Most people would have been so disappointed their cake died, but not him.  He just went on and did this.  He is such an amazing boy.  I love you Tyler.  You teach me so much every day about having a positive attitude.  Please stay that way and maybe eventually I can grow up to be like you.