Happy Father's Day

Jack looooves his Daddy. He talks about Daddy all day when he's at work and for about the last hour of the day any noises he hears is "Daddy coming!" Jack knows that his Daddy loves food. Jack, Henry and I are very lucky to have a Daddy who loves to cook.

This means every night my husband comes home from work and cooks. We're not talking meals out of a box or even from a recipe book; we're talking fresh ingredients and deliciously complicated dishes. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. We're spoiled by it. But, you see, because he's a fantastic 'dinner cook' which leaves a niche for a 'dessert cook'.

This week Jack, Henry and I gladly embraced this role to provide Daddy with a Father's Day treat.

After the mixing and the pouring into the pans there was some bowl and spoon licking. Though Jack managed to stay mess-free during the actual cooking process the 'clean up' was another story entirely. This, my friends, is where I learned that red velvet cake is not the best choice of cake for a toddler activity. Next time the kids are involved in the cooking I'm going to stick to something like yellow cake.

When we pulled the cakes from the pans some structural issues emerged. Nothing a little icing couldn't fix.

Then we decorated. We were even able to include Henry, but he was there in more of a supervisory role.

Jack really liked the decorating, and had enough impulse control to keep his hands off the cake!

Jack was so excited about the cake he made for Daddy we had to eat it a few days early. Daddy certainly didn't seem to mind.