Today we drew one step closer to summer vacation: Olivia's last day of dance class, which clearly didn't come soon enough based on the state of her tights...
Next week is the end-of-year recital and her first on-stage performance. We're very much looking forward to it. Especially K, who's ever so slowly coming to terms with the painful memories of his past and the torturous hours he spent cross-eyed and comatose at his sisters' recitals when they were kids. (No, dear, you may not bring a GameBoy to your daughter's recital. Yes, I'll pack you plenty of beef jerky and Lemon Heads.) Actually, he's being a really good sport about it, and when Olivia asked him to dance with her in a special father-daughter number, he agreed. I'm told by Olivia he will be attempting to shimmy. To the theme song from "Hawaii 5-0". In board shorts. Possibly with his shirt off. Okay, I'm kidding about that last part, but I'm pretty confident it will be a performance to remember nonetheless.
Olivia wanted to give her teacher, Miss Sharon, something to remember her by this summer. We waited until the last minute, of course, and finally settled on this tiny-cake-in-a-jar idea I've been wanting to try since the holidays. I used a boxed cake mix because time was short and I had one on hand. And old yeast jars I've been saving for just such an occasion. (Sidenote: why didn't anyone tell me you can buy yeast in bulk at Costco? I wasted so much money, and, yeah, I blame you, Mom.) Our first attempt was not-so-good. We overfilled the jars, resulting in a goopy mess all over the bottom of the oven and a less-than-pleasant aroma that continues to linger three hours later. Our second attempt was much better. We filled the jars only about half-way, baked them for about 20 minutes, and then packaged them up with vellum and ribbon:
Meanwhile, it's suddenly 85 degrees outside today (after being in the mid-60s yesterday), and I'm happy to turn off the oven. The exhaust fan on the other hand...yeah, I'll have to get back to you on that.
