Fiesta Cakes

If you should ever wonder why I feel compelled to run as much as I do, allow me to present a little story, along with a few exhibits that my wife threw together over the course of about 48 hours last week:

Exhibit A: a gumball machine cake.

Each fall, our elementary school has a Fall Fiesta fundraiser, and one of the most popular attractions is the Cake Walk, where 15 people go around a circle of numbers in musical-chairs fashion until the music stops. A number is pulled out of the bucket, and the person standing on that number wins a cake. Simple as that.

Yes, the gumballs are real

So each year, my wife comes up with some super creative designs for the cake table. And since she's helped organize the Fiesta in years past, she's aware that some parents are either too busy or too forgetful to bring cakes of their own - so she makes one or two extra on their behalf. That's just her way.

Exhibit B: My 8-year-old's favorite design this year

Each of us in our family knows that these cakes don't only look delightful, but they taste amazingly good - so the kids' primary goal at every Fall Fiesta is to win one of Mom's cakes back.

It's really a bunch of cleverly arranged cupcakes

The trouble is, the cakes are so distinctive that they're always among the first to be picked from the table by early winners of the Cake Walk. This year, our 5-year-old did the family proud by winning a cake within the first half-hour of the carnival.

Exhibit C: A cute carousel

She picked out the carousel cake that she helped decorate, and came home the hero of the day. As for the cake - it lasted less than 24 hours at our house before it vanished.

Complete with real animal cookies

These cakes may seem like extraordinary stuff - but to my wife, they're just another good idea that she was able to pull off without a hitch. I could probably write a similar post like this just about any week you choose, featuring either cookies or brownies or my current favorite at this time of year, pumpkin muffins. They're too much for me to resist, so I compensate by working them off as much as possible afterward.

And I keep exercising on a regular basis in the mornings, because I never know what might be waiting for me each night when I get home.