Pickles, Icecream, and Self Indulgence

OK, so it has been a bit since I wrote last.  Things have been crazy. We still don't know if the baby is a boy or a girl.  It decided to be clever and hide its bits.  That's OK.  Otherwise, things are going well.  Corey is still experiencing hormonal waves.  Certain commercials and music videos can be too sad.  Every day is a learning experience!  As for food, this was a trip to the store after church...

That's right.  A gallon of ice cream and a 2.5qt jar of pickles.  They are not eaten together...yet.  The smell issue has somewhat subsided.  I can use the oven regularly again at least.  She is also showing now.  I'm eagerly awaiting the day that the baby can be felt kicking.  I mean, she can feel it, but I can't.  Strangely, I'm really looking forward to the dog feeling the baby kick him in the head for the first time.  I don't want Buddy to get hurt, I just think it is going to be hilarious to watch his reaction. 

He as at least been a very loyal dog.  He will follow Corey right to bed the moment she says the words "let's go to bed".  He is up and at the foot of the bed pretty quick.  His loyalty belongs to me on the sofa.  There, he'll do whatever he can to try and curl up by me.  However, Corey is master of the sleeps.  He doesn't care if I'm going to bed, once she sets in in motion, I only matter if I come to bed so he can use my legs like a hammock. 

So, in other matters, I finally finished putting in new outlets downstairs so that Calfo can use the play area with light and TV if he wants it.  Eventually I'll be running cable to a wireless router so that there is a better internet signal.  I might even move my desk down there so that there's more room in the living room for stuff.  Yeah.  Like room for a baby to roll around or something.

So, I've been having some very strange story ideas.  I know, I'm a little more random than usual.  My brain has been moving a mile a minute trying to absorb everything and process it, so when suddenly it has downtime, it fills it with crazy thoughts.  Like time travel.  But in my story it requires an implant and you can only go back as far as the implant is inserted.  I'm thinking there will be an option to erase future memory after you go back.  Your mind is all that gets transferred.  Colin and I had talked about something like this before, and I've been expanding upon it.  I think it started with thinking about if this was all a dream...

Corey is over on the couch pretending she knows the words to the songs from Pandora.  She has come up with some pretty good stuff.  Well, I think I'm going to go join her and eat some rolled tacos or something.  Oh, and by the way - the bacon in the picture?  That's my idea.  I found that I can piggy back on Corey's cravings by suggesting other foods that might be good, but that really I just want.  I guess I'm self indulging using her pregnancy cravings as a cover.  I figure as long as I don't go overboard.  She's growing a person, so she gets a free pass.  Me?  I'm along for the ride, and right now, that means yummy treats.  So on that note, I'll leave you with Ambrosia.  Why?  I don't know, just enjoy it.

Cake Craft - How I Make Cakes

So, my son, The Calfo, turned 8 recently.  I decided to come up with something good for his cake.  I've been specially making his birthday cakes every year, and couldn't let him down with something normal.  I'll see if I can hunt down pictures of his other cakes.  Sometimes I decorate them intricately, sometimes I craft something out of cake.  This time, I decided to craft a Minecraft cake out of cake, rice crispy treats, and blue gelatin.  If you have never seen Minecraft, you can check out their official website here. 

 

So, I started with a regular old chocolate cake right out of the box.  OK, I didn't start with it, my lovely wife did.  Why?  Because I wanted it to not be lopsided.  For some reason, every cake I make myself comes out strange.  Don't know why.  Well, the cake was made, and left to cool.  If you are wanting something a little thinner and a little more durable, I suggest making brownies instead of cake.  They tend to stack easier, but I really wanted there to be cake here, so I used cake.  This will act as dirt for our little cake world.  I then took on the task of making blue gelatin.  This is blue and jiggly because it is going to be water.  I put it in an 8" x 6" x 2" glass pan.  I put it in the fridge and went to work on the hardest part for me.  Little paper things.

Look nice?  Yeah, they are evil. EVIL.

OK, so we printed off some paper figures that you just have to fold and glue.  You also need to have tiny little baby hands and some sort of magic glue that holds anything immediately without it getting glued to your skin.  After some time, they finally came together.  We have two blocks of TNT, a chest, a zombie, and everyone's favorite diamond clad hero, Steve.  These get set aside, and will be part of our final preparations.

Next up, I did up two half batches of rice crispy treats.  The first I did normal like, melting the marshmallows in a double boiler, because I like double boilers.  It also let me dump the marshmallow for the first batch into a pan and then mix the second batch right away.  To make the second batch gray, I used black food coloring.  Not too much, just enough to change the color.  Then mixed in the cereal and boom.  Gravel or stone.  Either one.  The regular batch will serve as sand for our world.  Now we have the components, and are almost ready to build the world!

My wife was helping me with all this, as she is always ready to help and keeps me sane while I work on these projects.  It also keeps me from getting too carried away and spending 6 hours on making a cake.  She'll tell you, I'd do it.  Well, she helped by splitting our icing into two batches, one green for grass, the other just white to act like glue.  It'll be going between blocks to hold it together.  If you're making a larger cake, you can use chocolate icing, or any icing between blocks.  I just happened to only need this much for the amount of work I was doing.  Now, once your gelatin has settled, cake cooled, treats molded, you're ready to build!  But everything into squares, and if you're like me, you'll draw out your pattern first.

W for water, S for sand, D for dirt, R for rock.  The slashes are for layers.  Yes, I plan that much on these.

Now that you've got a plan...OK, you don't have to plan it, but it helps.  It allows you to just build, so I highly recommend it.

Putting icing down under each block, I began by placing the rice crispy treats on the board first.  I also put icing between each layer, so that it would stay stacked better.  Then, the cake is added on.

You can see now how everything stacks up.  At this point, it is really taking shape.  After making sure they were in the right place, and were steady, I began to pipe on grass.  You can either use a grass tip and have real looking small grass, or use a big tip for pixelated grass.  I went for the bigger tip.

You can then put your paper figures on as well.  I put toothpicks in the legs of the zombie and Steve so they would stay put.  The others can be held with a little icing.  I had the lucky job of transporting this entire thing to my mom's house.  After a very careful drive, we got to put on the final touches.

And there you have it!  One epic Minecraft cake that didn't break the bank or a huge amount of time.  Calfo was pretty excited to see it.  (For those of you who don't know the story, Calvin Foster was given the nickname "The Calfo" by his Uncle Colin shortly after birth.  It stuck.)  So, if you're wanting to make a cake for a Minecraft fan, here's your chance!  If you make one yourself, feel free to share it here!  Good luck, and happy caking.  

The Calfo being excited.