Red cake

I feel like many moms on facebook are often saying something like, "Kid1 and I made brownies today! Then we busted out eight kinds of cookies and decorated them perfectly with royal icing. And to top it off, we made our own baked, painted and glazed some clay plates, so we could put the cookies on them and hand them out to our neighbors. It was SO MUCH FUN!"
I am not one of those moms. I made brownies with Johnny once, when he was about 27 months and I ended up with three broken eggs on the floor, wet brownie mix on the floor, in my hair and all over Johnny's head. The brownies were good, mind you, but it was not what I would call SO MUCH FUN.

So I decided to try again today. The boys were asking for cake and I agreed to give them some as long as we made it at home. I got out all of the cake mix flavors I had so they could choose a flavor (red velvet, because Johnny wanted a purple cake and it was closest I could get), then I got out the step stool so we could all mix up the ingredients. Johnny lost interest before I even set up the step stool, preferring to sit at the counter eating Goldfish demanding cake right this instant. Meanwhile, Hank stood on the stool and added the water and oil (with my guidance) and tried to crack an egg, but was not okay with having a hand covered in egg whites. Then he was done. Down he went to stand at the back door asking to be let outside to paint. I finished the rest of the mixing, pan greasing, batter pouring, cake baking and frosting making to end up with a cake.

I may have done the majority of the work, but they thought otherwise and man, they were so proud of the cake they made. And they were so cute eating the cake and saying "Mmmmm! Great cake, Hank/Johnny!" that it was completely worth it.

Stuffing their faces

I think they approved.

And now I have a ridiculous amount of cake left.

I have come to the conclusion that when a parent says, "My 18-month-old and I made chocolate cookies today!" What they really mean is, "I mixed up the cookies, dropped them onto baking sheets and baked them while my 18-month-old added a cup of sugar and then decided that pulling everything out of the kitchen cabinets was more interesting."