Days of Our Lives

So, with all the cake ventures, the girls decided to enroll in Wilton’s Cake Decorating class Level I (although S had already taken this class in C-bus). It came about rather accidentally; this plunging into an activity. It all stemmed from our search for the container for my Pandan Chiffon that I was to submit to the Southern New Mexico State Fair. It took me a-googling and I stumbled upon a store in town called Create a Cake, that offers classes. I had emailed some moms in town, in case they are also interested for their girls, and that brought My, whose mom, Sy said that she is interested. So she called the store and asked about the time, price and all those details. Meanwhile, another mom replied to my email and told me that Hobby Lobby offers cake decorating classes too and she knew because her daughters took the Level I last summer. When I asked Hobby Lobby for more details, it turned out that it was way cheaper! $17.50 vs. $60.00(or was it $70.00) and since I was going to have two girls to pay for, I immediately went for Hobby Lobby.

And so it was that I registered the girls and My. for the class. Sy. and I arranged for pick up and drop off so the burden is shared between our two families. Since the class goes right through Maghrib, we told the girls to pray when Maghrib came in. Alhamdulillah they’ve had this experience again and again since we were in C-bus, when they were taking sewing and classes at the Whetstone Rec Center. Most of the times though, hubby would go to them at the salah time, take them out of class and pray with them at a hallway or somewhere secluded. Now that they’re bigger, they’re starting to do it themselves. H, recently, during his soccer practice, excused himself from it and went next to the NMSU swimming pool building to pray Maghrib by himself. It so happened that hubby was in St Louis at the time. Usually, he would be with H and they’d pray together, but this time around, I had TQ, and we had asked a brother to help with picking and dropping H off for his soccer practice, and before H left, I reminded him of Maghrib. He wore his watch, and when he came home, I asked him if he prayed. Apparently, he had asked the coach if he could go for about 5 minutes, and he prayed next to the building.

“Did anyone watch you?” I asked, curious.

“”Well, a man passed by.”

Alhamdulillah he feels comfortable doing that.

N on the other hand, during a 4-H council meeting, fidgeted and fidgeted when she was supposed to pray Maghrib in a corner of the office. I have to admit though that it was probably not easy for her, because at the time, she was the only one who could pray, hubby and H were not there, and the room was also filled with other kids. So, I had to ask the 4-H agent if we could use an empty office room for N to pray in. When she went in, she immediately prayed with no hesitation.

At the cake class, on the very first day, Sy. stayed, so for that day, the girls, (well, N rather) had an adult to pray with, in an aisle in Hobby Lobby. On the second week, they were by themselves, but alhamdulillah all three girls prayed by themselves at the same spot where My.s mom had prayed the week before. They just got up and went out to pray, alhamdulillah. My. however, stopped going to the class because she didn’t enjoy it, so the third week, which was twp days ago, S and N prayed by themselves.

We all had gone out to go to the Imaging Center for my X-ray before the girls’ class. On the way to the class, we reminded them of the time for Maghrib.

“6.30 you two can pray. Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” S answered.

“I can come to you if you want,” offered hubby, meaning that he could come around maghrib time to take them out of class so they could pray.

“They already did it themselves last week,” I said to hubby.

“So you guys can do it by yourselves?” asked hubby.

“Yeah,” they replied.

So, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah.

place wax paper on top of the ruoghly iced cake and smooth it by running the spatula over the cake top and side over the wax paper and the lift...

All smooth!

It was during the second week that the girls had to bring an iced cake to class. S practically made her own cake, frosting, and iced it herself. She actually showed and taught me a new technique for smoothing the frosting on the cake; a technique I was not privy to before. N, ahh…N, I had to remind her to bake her cake and practically helped her and baked it for her, though she did most of the measuring. Then S helped her ice it because by then I was too exhausted and angry at N for not taking responsibility for her own deadlines.

When we picked them up that night though, they were not done decorating their cakes and I asked why.

“The teacher was talking and talking and only the last 20 minutes she let us decorate the cake.”

Aha…that is also part of the reason My. stopped going to class after that week.

So the girls finished decorating their cakes at home. They had also learned the technique for transfering pattern on the cake from wax/parchment paper using piping gel; another technique I have never used.

And voila! Their cakes look AWESOME! Mashaallah!

N's cake

S' cake

And what did we do with these two whole cakes? We gave them out to our neighbors and left a container of cake slices at the men’s kitchen in the masjid, with a note explaining its presence attached.