2nd Grade End of Year Party!

Okay, the picture simply does not do this Swiming Pool Cake justice! My 4-year-old and 8-year-old boys and I had so much fun making it together. The pool really is blue jello and the "steps" in the pool (faintly visible on the left side of the pool in the photo) totally happened by accident. The little swimmers are gummy bears and they are using fruit roll-ups as towels and gummy rings as intertubes. We followed the instructions at http://baking.about.com/od/familybaking/a/swimmingpoolcak.htm?p=1. Clearly, I must have cut the pool a bit too deep because the first batch of jello leaked right through...ACK!...except for a very thin jello border on the bottom of the pool. No worries. We just chilled it in the fridge and then tried again. And the second time worked perfectly! The first leak created a cool blue border around the whole cake that worked out just fine. PLUS, it was delicious!

The cake helped set the tone for a fun 2nd grade end of school year party last week! We created sand art bottles (67 cents/bottle from Hobby Lobby plus the different colors of sand) and decorated summer journals in hopes that they will actually continue to write during the summertime! We also played summer-themed hangman with words like waterskiiing, vacation, ice cream cone, sandals, and more! The kids had a blast and I had fun trying out something new!