Our boys have been all about making fun plans with their friends this summer. I’ve loved watching them take initiative by making the phone calls themselves, setting up baseball games, soccer games, and basketball shoot-arounds. They’ve even “written and directed” several movies and invited friends over so that they could “shoot footage”. One mom commented, “It sure has been great for Justus to be the Activities Event Coordinator for all of our kids this summer.” :)

Today, the choice event was a game of Air Soft. As they were making the phone calls yesterday to prepare for this, the idea came to them that maybe they could also do some baking so they would have something tasty as a surprise to serve to their guests. After all, it’s always a great idea to serve cake to your friends after you’ve spent an hour and a half shooting at them, right?! 

Upon hearing their idea, I quickly squashed down my instinctive protests about them turning on the oven when it was 105° outside. If they want to treat their friends, who am I to argue? (Especially when they were leaning toward making something chocolate and I would get to be the taste tester.)  I did suggest, however, that they make their baking plan, prepare their ingredients, and then wait to actually bake in the evening when the temperature cooled to a more comfortable…98°. Ha!

Well, one brainstorm turned into another, until what had once been an idea to bake a simple treat turned into an elaborate plan to bake and decorate a layered Chocolate Fudge Cake. In addition, they decided that while they were making the cake, they should also make a movie such as they’d seen on Cake Boss on Netflix. Did I mention I had some produce I was in the middle of chopping and preserving during all of this? To suggest that my kitchen was a little bit of a (hot) hubbub of chaos may have been an understatement. Apparently, my family thrives on messy insanity.

Fantastic as they are, our boys don’t always work well together in executing a plan, but I’ve got to hand it to them:  The cake mixing and measuring went off without a hitch (with only a small amount of batter landing on the floor…twice). They took turns. They worked together. They even sort of cleaned up after themselves.

After the cake cooled (the next morning), they took turns decorating it with Fudge Frosting. As you can imagine, it was always a pity when they got frosting on their fingers. What could they do but lick it off?

 I was just pleased that the frosting bags didn’t explode. 

 They were so proud of the finished product. And so they should be.

Then, my yard and house became a center of excitement as a total of nine boys came in and out, making me wonder all morning long why in the world I was continuing to run my air conditioner. I’m pretty sure all of our guests must surely think that the only phrase I know how to say is, “Close the door please!” 

Oh, and how did the guests like the cake? Based on the fact that the only thing left in my kitchen when they were finished was a bunch of chocolate cake crumbs, I’d say they liked it just fine.

Then they headed right back outside to shoot each other again. You’ve gotta love it. :)

{Well, if you can believe it, after I had this post written and ready to go up, Justus showed me the finished movie they had put together. I got quite a chuckle out of it since 1) he said a lot of similar things in the movie that I said in this post, and 2)  It’s an awful lot like the actual show Cake Boss, with a Coppinger twist, of course. Therefore, I decided to post the movie to share with you, if you care to watch it. You’ll especially appreciate it if you’ve watched the actual Cake Boss show…or if you are an aunt or loved one who just can’t help but think that my boys are cute. This just features three of our boys since our oldest is at camp.}