Cake Happens

As it turns out, Brent and I can't possibly work all the time.  Every weekend and many week nights, the kids watch as we tinker around on some sort of project...sometimes big, sometimes small.  It keeps us off the couch and engaged with an activity we can all learn something about, but it's exhausting.  The kids are usually right along side us, either helping out or playing nearby.  They do such a good job making up imaginary games and inventing stories while Brent and I keep busy that we wanted to reward them for being such good kids.  So without telling them, we planned a surprise day trip to Omaha, Nebraska to visit the zoo and our special friends that just had a new baby.  

Even though Owen is just about ready to turn 5, we still brought our stroller because we know our child and that if he has to walk too far, he will complain about his legs hurting.  Plus, this way, we didn't have to carry our snacks, camera bag and jackets!  WINNING!

In this photo, Emma and Owen's faces are actually saying, "hurry up, mom - the last thing we want to do right now is stand still for a photo!"

I'm not sure what happened here, but it looked like this gorilla just tipped over and fell asleep.  Kind of like Brent on a Saturday night.

His guy appears to have a pleasant demeanor.

The best part of the day came after we left the zoo.  Conveniently, we needed to pass by my favorite cake store on our way to visit our friends.  That's a lie...we took a detour to pass the cake store.  But you must understand, this is a special cake bakery.  The first phone call I made after our daughter was born in Omaha was to the Cake Gallery to order up two cakes.  That probably didn't help with the whole "shedding the baby weight" deal.

I always always always order 2 layer white cakes with white buttercream frosting.  This time, I was determined to get a chocolate cake for Brent and the kids, because I'm generous like that.  So we walk in the doors and drool over the selections for a few minutes and decide on the Oh Ho cake.  It is basically an inside out ho-ho covered in chocolate ganache.

Brent and the kids went off to a different side of the store to look at the other cakes as I waited for the clerk to finish boxing up the cake for us.  When done, she politely asked if there would be anything else today.  And I froze.  Mind reeling.  And my finger pointed at the small white cake you see below.  She boxed it up and I turned, holding two big cake boxes to tell Brent we were ready to go.  His jaw dropped and he said, "Heidi, why are you holding two cakes?"  And I shrugged and made my way out to the car, snuggling the cakes safely in my arms.

We were then headed over to our very good friends' house to snuggle their new baby and play with their adorable toddler.  Unfortunately, the cakes are supposed to be refrigerated so as I was holding the baby, I heard Amber in the kitchen trying to clear out like, half of their fridge to make room for all of my cakes.  Sacrifices.  As I was telling Mike about my cake store debacle, he simply said, "cake happens."  Some people just get me.