Ye Olde School Carnival

The school carnival. I love it. I hate it. I have mixed emotions for sure. This year, we went on a cruise in September and I thought for sure we would miss it. And we almost did, but not quite. Instead we came back and the carnival was the day after which means I had zero time to prepare for it.

Which wouldn't be so bad, except that Daisy had her heart set on making a cake to enter in the competition. (Trust me, I tried to talk her out of it.) Then to make matters worse, Daisy was in Idaho. She wouldn't be back until late in the evening and the cake was due at the school at 8 am.

So I made a cake. As Daisy requested, I made an octopus cake. Because, why not?? First I baked the cakes and cut out all the pieces. I think it is recognizable.

Now to frost the beastie. Not easy and that was after freezing it for a bit to cut down on crumbling. Three of us went to town and I was glad for the help.

Then we popped it back into the freezer and then tried to smooth out a couple spots. It mostly worked.

Now some piping to give it a little detail. The girls helped too. Somewhere during this time, Daisy came home and added the eye.

Don't worry, we saved an important part for her. She was in charge of adding the blue spots, since she wanted a blue ringed octopus, because nothing says yum like a highly venomous creature.

I was darn proud of that octopus. And guess what? It didn't win anything. Yep, not a thing. What can you do? We certainly aren't professionals. For instance, this hedgehog cake came in first.

And it should...it is adorable. I  just wish I could have done more for Daisy. I knew it meant a lot to her. So we bought the octopus and ate it. That seemed a fitting end for him.

During the carnival, June helped out at the nails station and Robyn helped with Face Paint. Although they had acrylic paints again, so I told my kids not to do it. Not worth it people. Invest in some face paint.

Daisy introduced me to Gaga ball. Tyler and June had been playing for a while and I thought that I wouldn't like it, but it was ridiculously fun. It consists of a big pen, three balls, and you basically hit them and try not to get hit in the legs. There are some other rules about not holding the ball, etc that I learned the hard way. Those kids will call you out in a heartbeat. Oddly, they manage to stay in even when you've hit them multiple times. Some of them are HUGE cheaters. Eventually I would ignore the ones who were obviously out. It is not worth getting upset about. The boys were always especially excited to get an adult out. It was like a badge of honor. We played for a long time and Mrs. Jensen was kind enough to let us play for free. (It cost tickets for the kids.)

And besides Tyler slicing his finger open while playing, it was a very fun evening. I'll count this as one of the better carnivals. Only two more years of this...