Amy's Birthday

Today is Amy's 12th birthday! Where does the time go? She wanted me to surprise her with a cake. Natalie suggested an owl cake and then drew this design for me. I made it while Amy was at school. I think it's my favorite fondant cake yet! If you haven't tried using marshmallow fondant yet, you should try it! It tastes so much better than regular fondant and is really cheap and easy to use. The other thing that I love about it is that I can wrap the leftovers in plastic wrap and put it in a plastic container and it will stay fresh for a long time.

Fun Youth Activity!

We had a very fun joint Young Men/Young Women activity last night! My daughter found this great idea on Sugar Doodle: TV Commercial Activity. The idea of the activity is to divide the youth into groups and then give them a fake "Mormon" product that they have to make a commercial for.  My daughter also found someone on Mormon Share who had done the activity in their ward and had made printable images for the products. This was great and saved lots of time. Here is the link for those: Funny TV Commercials with images. We decided to make a few of our own as well. The ones we made were: Magic Monson Matches, Ammon's Fencing Academy, and Apricot Tree Popcorn. The youth had such a great time at this activity. Their commercials were awesome! I think one of the things that made it successful was that I told them there would be prizes for the Best Jingle, the Most Creative, and The Best Commercial - meaning I want to buy that product! Knowing about the prizes gave them the incentive to work hard and be creative. I also gave each group a chance to pick a random prop such as a large stuffed bunny or a basketball, that they had to incorporate into their commercial. These were chosen before they knew what products they would be trying to "sell." They also each were randomly given a slip of paper with a phrase they had to incorporate into their commerical, such as: "Four out of Five dentists approve of this message," or "Side effects include blurred vision, recurring happy thoughts, and an uncontrollable urge to hug your grandma."