Bake Sale(s)

Hey Friends, its been too long. I realized today that I am several weeks behind. I can blame it mostly on sickness. First Sam, then Seth, then me, then Seth, and now Jake. (Yes, Seth snuck in two times of being sick.) Needless to say, this momma wasn't getting much sleep. But I think we are taking a turn for the better and I am finally able to sit up at night and write somethings down. Blogging is a luxury, and when your in survival mode, it just doesn't take priority. So I am back. And here is the news on the.....

Jayne has been asking from day one to learn to dance hula. I didn't find a hula class, but I found a tahitian class. But it isn't just a class, it is class to practice to compete in the Tahitian dance competition held at the Polynesian Cultural Center. So I signed Jayne and Ellie up. Then I found out that the class was only $25, but the costumes for the the performance would be $160 each. Choke, cough. At the same time Sam was asking to buy real fireknifes that run $300 for doubles. Ouch. This was not in my budget and their allowance wasn't going to cut it. So we did what people do here- we fundraised. The Tahitian dance teacher, Auntie Penny, put together two fundraisers. She is also a zumba instructor, so she threw two zumba parties. The tickets were $10 each and the girls got 100% of the money to go towards their costumes. For the first party the girls sold 9 tickets($90), so that was a good start to the $320 total. Then we decided to have a bake sale. The girls and I made Joan's famous chocolate chip cookies, two dozen cup cakes, and two pans of my Dad's famous sheet cake. And my friend Daisy made a 2 dozen cinnamon rolls and 2 dozen orange rolls to sell for her daughters costume. We made signs in the afternoon and baked the goods Friday night, and on Saturday morning the kids rode their bikes around putting up signs and set up the tent for the table of goodies. We set up at 8:30 and sold out by 9:30. We earned $100 and my friend earned $70. It was pretty amazing. Its kind of shocked me. But my neighbor who lives here said that's how it goes. That everyone here loves baked goods and that things would sell fast. Sure enough. So now we were at $190. We decided to have one more bake sale. Ellie sold $40 of zumba tickets so we had another $90 to go. Then I got sick. Fortunately Grandma Dianne, baker extraordinaire, was at our house. By Friday at noon she had everything baked. Sam made the cookies, and she made an extra couple pans of brownies. So again, the kids set up shop and sold out in an hour. They made exactly $100, enough to pay for their costumes. It was a fun experience for the kids and for me. It was so great to see what a supporting community this place is. Everyone who stopped always told the kids to keep the change for their costumes. We lost a bit of overhead to the cost of production, but working together made it fun too. The kids worked hard. Sam had put in extra time and effort, cleaning cars, closests, and babysitting to earn money to get his fireknives. 

Below is Ellie after opening the pressurized cocoa can to make the brownies. 

Jake was not very helpful at the bake sale. You can see by the chocolate face!

I couldn't help posting this picture of these two. These seats are right behind the bake sale tent. These two were sitting having a conversation about the going ons of the sale. They totally crack me up. Such turkeys. Adorable turkeys.