MPMLA Cake

When my mom saw the cake that I made for Andrew's graduation she immediately commissioned one like it for her Mountain Plains Music Library Association Conference. Of course there were a few things she wanted to change--like instead of a graduation theme she wanted a music theme. Go figure.

She also wanted some green fields instead of snow. I suppose the weather finally is warm enough to be green. When Andrew graduated it was, sadly, still snowing.

It always takes me a few days to put a cake together. A simple two-layer cake really shouldn't take me that long, but Rachel only allows me to work in spurts. I burn things more often than before, if that's even possible. I have to leave mid-recipe to stop her from climbing into the toilet or to read her a story and then can't remember where I left off when I am finally able to get back to it. And truthfully, stirring a cake mix with one hand, while trying to keep Rachel from grabbing anything, is quite tricky.

This morning I agreed to watch Kim's twins, so I wasn't expecting to get much accomplished. I wasn't expecting to get much accomplished before I said I'd watch them either. I go through most days feeling like all I get done is reading story books and stacking blocks.

Interestingly enough, the girls all entertained themselves long enough for me to make excellent headway on my cake. It was quite wonderful. For me, that is. We'll have to ask Eliza how she felt about it since Rachel decided that she'd follow her around all day.


She held onto Eliza's shirt and walked with her everywhere. For the most part Eliza was quite nice about it. She shared toys with Rachel and brushed Rachel's hair and "read" her stories. Rachel was thrilled to be on the receiving end of so much attention.

(Kim--Eliza is welcome anytime. Isabelle is, too, of course, but for some reason Rachel just seems to like Eliza better. (Sorry, Izzy.)).

I did do my fair share of reading and playing, though. Kim's girls seem to enjoy reading almost as much as Rachel. We sat on the couch for about a half hour reading stories. Whenever we were finished with one story one of the girls would hop down and grab another book. My favorite part was when Isabelle and Eliza decided that they didn't want me to read the stories anymore.

"No!" they'd yell when I would start to read, and then would babble on and on about each page, pointing to details in the picture and mumbling nonsensical sentences.

Rachel seemed to enjoy their story telling as much as mine. And as much as she wanted to stay up and play with the twins, and hear their wonderful stories, she eventually got too grumpy to stay awake.

She took a two hour nap! Well, it was almost two hours. More like an hour and twenty minutes, but we'll round up so that is sounds cooler.

With such an uncharacteristically long nap (and my free two-year-old babysitters) I was able to finish the cake before dinner! I think it turned out well, although I always get crumbs in my icing!


I used poured cookie icing for the cookies, which is something I've never tried before. It makes them kind of shiny. The snow on the mountains, and the base frosting is just buttercream.