Where are all the postings from other people? Okay, I have another idea... Send him on a Scavenger Hunt the day of the party. It will get him out of your hair for a while and give him something to do. You will have to do some work to put this together. If you live in a small town it will be easier for you as the shop owners will probably know you and will help you out. Before the party, make up clues to send him to each pre-arranged location and eventually back to wherever his party will take place. If he is leaving from home give him a beautifully wrapped box with the first clue in it. The first clue will lead him to his favorite garden shop where he will find his next clue near his favoite flower, tree or some garden tool he has been drooling over. Have one of his friends meet him in the row with the flower, tree or tool he is looking for to present him with his small gift (the favorite flower etc.) and give him the next clue. That friend can join him in figuring out the next clue that will lead him to his next favorite place. Give him a funny word to say to someone from the store who is aware of the game you are playing. That person will give him 2 clues one to find his gift in the store and the second to his next location. The next clue will lead him to a coffee shop where a few of his buddies will be waiting to have coffee with him. They will buy him a coffee and each give him a piece of the clue which will lead him to the next destination. All the friends will join him to the next location, perhaps his fav. place for lunch where he will meet more friends for a light lunch and more clues. Some of the gifts can be pre-arranged to be gag gifts given at lunch or coffee. You know what he likes so you can plan his destinations and gifts. The final destination will be where his party will be held and the rest of his friends will be there to join in on the fun. You can meet him with a stop watch telling him if he wasn't as old as dirt he would have figured out the clues faster and been home hours ago. The rest of the party can have the garden theme but how about a ho-down (don't know if this is spelled correctly) but you get the idea. Have all the things you mentioned along with a big bowl filled with water and apples for dunking for apples, hire a Caller and have square dancing if you have the room or someone to do line dancing and other (I'm going to have to call it country dancing because the name escapes me right now). You can also rent a floor to lay down in yr. yard if you don't have a deck or patio to dance on. Okay, I'm done for the night. If I think of something else I will post again. Eyerish PS sorry if I spelled anything wrong, I need Spell Check!

Hey all, I am ok but I didn't go to the party. Too many germs floating around out there. Part of her present was a wooden word "Diva" on a standing base. She giggled & told her mom, "Look! Just what I am". About the age you get a machine in this family....2-3 years back an old Singer. It's here. No one at home can help her. Her Uncle Warren spoils her with shoes & eating out. She is not a McDonald or any other fast food kid. She likes real food you order from the table. She will eat anything too. She's never been picky about food. We've had the lesson on taxes when you buy, she's now learning about tipping. She doesn't want to use HER money for either. She's aging all of us. No bangs is a recent decision of hers & they are still growing out. She's not the baby we did what ever for anymore. She has her own ideas. Growny as she is, she has never talked to Santa. She sends messages by us & says she prays kinda like she does to Jesus "& that works". Last year, she didn't want him coming her their house & couldn't understand why he couldn't just leave her things on the front porch. Can't remember life before her. I just regret that my mother didn't live till she got here. Her grandmother is my mother's step daughter that she raised from age 4, so there is no blood line back to her. She has so many ways & ideas, likes & dislikes like my mother that it is really freaky sometimes. Her love for crafts & graveyards is just an example.

Scratch baking isn't inconsistent when done by the same baker with the same ingredients, tools and oven. When someone who really doesn't know how to bake well has inconsistent results it's usually because the ingredients weren't handled correctly or measured properly, and the baker doesn't know the oven well enough to know the correct settings for that particular oven. I don't get the mix "doctoring" part if it's more than throw in a few raspberries or a box of pudding mix. The basics, the flour, sugar and baking powder, are the easy part! At least once you've mastered measuring. ryseryse_2004, I read once that cake mixes require the addition of milk and eggs so that the person making it will feel like it's really baking rather than magic box factory stuff. I haven't made a mix since I was old enough to measure, however, so this is just a guess: There have been a lot of changes in how fats are handled for factory made foods. It'll be the fats that create the "chemical" taste that Annie mentioned, and which are most likely to vary. They're also the first things to get rancid and therefore are what most require stabilizers and preservatives, which also have gone through changes. That may very well be your difference. They'll also have an effect on texture, and potentially even dryness. Annie and Maddielee bring up a good point. Plain old frosted cake is kind of out of style. It could be they're engineering the cake mixes to be dryer than they used to be in order to stand up to the very wet fillings, soaks, ganaches, cremes and toppings that are so in.

I used to bake a lot of cakes, especially coffee cakes, when I worked at a restaurant in San Francisco in the mid 1970s - today, not so much. I do often make pancakes, however:Apfel Pfannkuchen, from a Röckenwagner recipe. Another version of same:Here's a birthday cake I received as a gift:"Happy Birthday to Me!" This is what I make more often: Or just regular pies; apple and cherry. But I did especially like the chocolate birthday cake. I tend to my lemon curd tarts when I have a lot of lemons on my trees. I found this photo (which I had already scanned):From my first birthday party. I am sitting in front of my cake, which has a carousel decoration on it, also with a carnival theme. My sister is the one opening all of my presents - she had/has a lot less patience than I have.