Blue & Gold

This upcoming Tuesday is our Blue and Gold. The theme this month is Invention and Resourcefulness. A few weeks ago Hunter brought home a paper bag full of stuff by his scout leader (me). There were 20 items in each bag and the scouts were to use at least 10 of the 20 items. They could add to it any way they wanted but the goal was to invent something. Hunter's bag had a toilet paper tube, a pink book mark, paperclip, styrofoam balls, pom poms, a sheet of felt, clothespins, wooden disks, a balloon, etc. We recently saw Dispecable Me 2 and since then that's all the kids talk about. He told me he wanted to make a minion with his stuff. I really didn't think he could do it but he sure showed me! He took a used #10 can and painted it yellow. He took his white balloon from the bag, blew it up, painted it yellow and stuffed it into the top of the can. Using the toilet paper roll he cut goggles and than raided the bathroom to find 2 more for the arms. He cut the pink book mark and used it as the tongue. The blue felt turned into the overalls. He used the pom pom's for the buttons. He painted the wooden disks and styrofoam balls black and used them for the shoes. He painted 1 finger onto a piece of paper and used the 2 clothespins for the other finger's holding his "Welcome to Scouts" sign. Not wanting the other hand to be empty to took one of our gloves and put it on. He used his paperclip for the name tag holder. He took one of my black pipe cleaners, cut it up and hot glued it to the balloon for his hair. I thought for sure he'd pop the balloon but he waited the perfect amount of time so the glue wouldn't pop his balloon but the glue would still stick. He found some large googly eyes and used duct tape for the wrap around goggle part. He was creative in using his resourcefulness. I was expecting some type of a robot or monster not a minion. I was very impressed.

Next month will be our Pine Wood Derby. Knowing that is the month the boys and Dad's do something together another Scout Leader thought it would be fun for the boys to make a cake with their mom's this month. We will be using the cakes for our dessert at the Blue and Gold. I wasn't terribly surprised when Hunter announced he wanted to make a minion for his cake. This time he wanted to make a evil minion, from Dispecable Me 2. We baked our cakes yesterday, froze them over night and decorated today. 

I didn't feel decorating a cake is a Sunday thing and by the time the kids get home from school we don't have a lot of time before bed time. So we chose today to make his cake. These cakes weren't suppose to be made by mom alone but by mom and son. He beat the frosting, he helped color the fondant. We both took turns cutting out fondant pieces to go over our cake. It took both of us working together to get the fondant onto the cake. Hunter made the goggle strap, the goggle and the eye. Madelyn wanting to help made the purple eye lid. 

While they were working on that I started cutting out the overalls. Hunter picked out and helped roll the design around the edge giving the overall's a better than plain look. Running out of fondant we used yellow marshmallow's (that's all we had) for the teeth. Thinking it still needed a little something we added a pocket and put Hunter's initial on it.

Hunter and Madelyn made the spikes for his hair. They had a hard time staying on the head so we broke toothpicks in half and slid them through the middle of the spike and down into the cake to hold them better. 

We ended up with a little split on one side but I was pretty pleased with the way it turned out. Especially with all the help we got!

We've had a good day. Hunter really learned how hard, how messy and how many dirty dishes are created when baking a cake like this. He didn't particularly enjoy sweeping up the mess on the floor either. It was fun spending time together. The cake didn't turn out exactly how we had planned but I think it works despite the missing feet. We ran out of fondant and I didn't have enough marshmallow's or powder sugar to make more. 

Now the hard part comes keeping the cake out of little fingers until Tuesday night.