Happy St. Patrick's Day and Worst Cake EVER!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!!

I know some may never have guessed it, 

but I am indeed Irish, with the name Kelly and a son Liam......LOL! 

Hope you're wearing your green today. You don't want to get pinched!!

My two leprechauns are having so much fun celebrating!

      

Of course, I made sure we are all wearing our green. 

We started the day by reading a book about St. Patrick's Day. 

Here are some of our favorites:

         

                                                

We especially *love* that the leprechaun's name is Liam!

After reading some stories, Julian and Liam began counting something

 {I forget what now, but that's not important}.

 Liam has been counting 1-13 and then skipping to 18 and then counting to 20.

{ we've been working on that}

 Julian decided he was going to count to 100. 

I was so proud that he only needed help remembering some of the names for numbers like 50, 60, 70. 

I had printed out a hundreds chart for him the other day so we reviewed all the numbers he was having trouble remembering. 

Then I had him color the numbers in the tens. 

Now, in a classroom, when you do an activity, 

you hope that your students notice that there is a pattern in doing this

 {all the tens numbers are in a straight line down}. 

I'm proud to say that Julian immediately noticed and said,

 *That's how you count by 10s,*

and then began rattling them off like he'd known them forever.

 He remembers it now and has been walking around all day counting by 10s to 100. 

HOORAY!

So, I had seen this cake on Pioneer Lady's website and thought,

 *OMG, how cute! Wouldn't this be the cutest St. Patty's Day cake??*

So, I had bought white cake mix at Aldi's.

I love Aldi's. They're cheap, it's not crowded, and did I mention,

 they're CHEAP??!!

I have loved MOST things we buy there. 

Do you see where this is going??

Well, it wasn't the taste of the cake that was wrong.

What was wrong was that they cake was WAY TO0 MOIST!!

Normally, one shouldn't be complaining about moist cake.

*HOWEVER*

 when you're trying to stack six layers of cake and it's falling apart in your hands, you have a problem! 

OOPS!!

Just look at this disaster! 

Can we all agree that this is just 

*12 kinds of ugly???!!!!*

So, as I'm mourning over my disaster, two cute little leprechauns walk in the kitchen and say,

*That's the best cake EVER!*

{I love those two!}

Who Needs an Oven??

Never would have said that before until our oven broke. It's the never ending saga in our household. Basically, mom leaves job, cuts budget and oven breaks. That's Rummel luck for you!

The good news is we (we, as in Mark and his Dad with the help of his friend Tom who repairs appliances) know how to fix it. Well, we know now. Although through never ending trial and errors and parts that were ordered and didn't work and now having to go order a new part. So I guess it's still up in the air as to whether it will be fixed. It's been a month already!

So what's a girl to do?? Planning carefully! I've been cooking everything on the stove top. Now it's been so long, I'm getting more creative. Come to think of it, with all these "extra" appliances, we hardly really need a stove. For example, I made brownies tonight without an oven (I used the waffle iron), and they're really good! We warm the garlic bread for our pasta on the grill (just about anything can be cooked on a grill). I made apple crisp in a skillet and even found a cookie recipe that uses a skillet! We have a toaster oven, a roaster, a Crock Pot, and a bread machine. Those things can't take care of everything an oven can, but I think we're doing pretty well without an oven. Never would have imagined!

Waffle Brownies