Neighbors & Spice Cake...

My aunt was over the other day and we were talking about photography. I had my camera out and took a few shots of my neighbors who were playing next door...

I was thinking today (thanking God :) how grateful I am to have friendships with many of the people who live around me. It can be as simple as 'borrowing' a cup of milk to sharing life together...like the 'Spice Cake Disaster' that happened tonight... ;)

It all started when the kids I was watching suggested we make a cake. We did, and the first part was seamless.

I tend to get a little impatient while waiting for cakes to "cool" before you put icing on them, but tonight I was proud of myself for waiting a whopping 10 minutes after taking it out from the oven. I started icing the cake with reservation, but it was staying on well, so I began to heap on generous portions.

And what seemed to be instantly, the icing began to melt and flow off of the cake and drip onto the side of the pan. At this point I told the kids it was ok to use their fingers to stop the dripping, but it was to no avail. Our efforts were useless as the icing seemed to be POURING off the cake onto the oven burners below it. It was a HUGE mess!

I realized that I needed to quickly move the cake over to the counter...it wouldn't stop the flow, but it would be easier to clean up (or so I thought.) Instead, in the process of moving it, icing went EVERYWHERE! On my leg, my feet, the floor, the counter...Of course the phone rings, and I can't even pick it up because my hands are covered in stickiness.

Well, I started rushing around trying to clean up, but the kids were getting impatient and wanted some cake while it was still warm. So we all took a break from clean up duty and sat down to enjoy, leaving the disaster in the kitchen for a minute.

The whole thing was quite hilarious in retrospect, and I even got a quote from the five year old that made my night...

"Nobody can make spice cake like you can Kristen!" haha