How to make an Airplane Cake

My little man recently turned four. (That post is long overdue.) Anyway, I made this airplane cake and received some questions about it. And since I took some pictures as I made it, I'll see if what I did makes any sense to anyone else.

Bake 2 round 8 or 9 inch cakes. One cake mix box worth. Cut one cake in half.

Put those halves together with icing.

(Use homemade icing if you want to please your picky hubby.)

Slice the other cake to make the rest of the pieces. I actually made one more cut that I didn't take a picture of (image a little off the middle piece). Hopefully the pieced together cake will make sense.

Use more icing to glue and assemble all the pieces.

Cover the whole think in blue icing. Pipe white "clouds" along the base.

Use more white for the windows

I then piped green to outline and spell out "AJ" and "4!". However, personally, I thought it looked better before I added the green. Oh well.

Ta Da! An Airplane cake to please a preschooler.

Jesus Paid it All

Oh, Praise the One

Who paid my debt
And raised this life up
From the dead!

Jesus paid it all
All to Him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow.

An "It's Almost My Birthday" Party

I will be taking the boys to IA over Spring Break to visit Grandma and Grandpa Dykstra.  Marc, however, will not be coming along because he will be too busy working.  Yes, praise God... the man has a job! 

Next Tuesday is AJ's Fourth birthday and since we will be in Iowa, we had his birthday party tonight.  Just a small little something with a few friends, but I think he enjoyed it. 

We started the day with chocolate chip pancakes and he got to watch "Cars" this morning.  Then because of the gorgeous weather (I think I heard we had a record high), he spent the rest of the day playing outside with his buddy, Noah.

For his party in the evening some other friends came over, along with the kiddos I babysit, for pizza.... AJ's all time favorite food.  Seriously, the kids asks for pizza for every meal.  Then came the piniata.

AJ then got to open gifts.  I know the picture below is blurry, but can you see AJ's face?  He totally freaked out when we opened this little spiderman toy he had wanted.  It was hilarious.   He also got a scooter like Andrew just got for his birthday... except AJ's is blue.  So now they can scoot around together (plus... the scooters fold up and are much more portable for traveling than bikes.)

Finally, we ended the party with an Airplane Cake... complete with Grandma Dykstra's Icing Recipe.  (I was told I gypped my oldest last month by frosting his cake with storebought icing.)  I admit.... this was SO much better.  Below is AJ blowing out his 4 candles with the help of his buddy.

What a good day for a birthday party.  And the best part... he gets to put on the birthday shirt again and celebrate all over again in Iowa on his real birthday next Tuesday.

Did you know there were Mean Butterflies??

Go Go Go Jo

Have you ever seen this production??

Last week I was offered an opportunity to head the to our local Civic Theater with some good friends to go see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Oh my goodness... it was just that.... Amazing!

Uh-Maze-Ing.

I want to run right out and get the CD and blast the fun music.

Playin' Hooky.

I was hesitant to call Andrew's school early Friday morning to let them know that Marc would be picking Andrew up at 10:45 am instead of the scheduled 11:20 am. I just knew they were going to ask why...

Me, pausing briefly: "For no good reason... they are just going to the fishing show."

School Office Woman: "That sounds like a perfectly good reason to me."

I knew I liked his school.

Two Little Monkeys Swingin' in the Trees.

Sad Day...

This week was a sad week for me. You see a long time ago, I heard this rumor that there was a coveted Meijer travel mug that they gave out on rare occasions only. Occasions like the Grand Opening of a new store. Seeing as our town is completely saturated with Meijers, I didn't see myself ever acquiring such a coveted cup.

Why are these cups so coveted? When you use them, you are able to get a coffee/cappuccino refill for $.10.

A DIME!

You can't make coffee at home for a dime. Not remotely decent coffee at least.

Well, one day, while out for a walk with Andrew when he was an wee one, I stumbled across a garage sale and low and behold...what were they selling?? The coveted Meijer cup!! You betcha that I snatched that up. I don't remember now what I paid for it, but it wasn't much. I would have paid much more.

So for the last several years, I have been enjoying Dime Coffee on a fairly regular basis.

16oz for ten pennies!

However, I was notified that the program was ending this week. I was able to get one last dime coffee last Friday. But yesterday, alas... I was asked to pay $.94. Sigh...

Meijer... thank you for offering this program for so long. I knew of no one else who had one of these mugs and never even came across another one during my many stops for Dime Coffee. I really can't complain for having to pay full price now after getting super cheap coffee for long.

Now, if only my own coffeemaker weren't broken....

Our Creator God.

These are few pictures I took at the Garden last week.

A butterfly with clear wings.

A gorgeous plant with such bright colors.

A red-tailed hawk high in the tree near the arch.

Star Person of the Week

On top of Andrew having his birthday this week, he was also Star Person of the Week in his Kindergarten class. It's a very exciting honor. You get to put up pictures and stars about yourself in the hallway for the whole school to see.

Plus, you get to bring in something everyday to show your class. It's been quite the challenge each night deciding what to bring in the next day to show off to his friends.