Having fun making our Cub cakes.

Upon walking in I was greeted with this masterpiece of Christmas frosting. Who decorates 3-inch tall Christmas trees? Some rockstar mom, apparently.

This is a car on a racetrack. It represent the scouts' beloved pinewood derby.

The huge snowman cake won the top bid.

The wreath got third place and behind it were "deer droppings." Ew.

See my Cub cakes on my back-of-the-pantry paper plates and crumpled aluminum foil? Yeah, the cupcakes next to mine came with their own customized holiday display box. Pffft.

A bulls-eye with flaming arrows.

Each cupcake has two scouts sitting by the campfire. Ima let you marinate on that one...

Hands down my favorite. Zoom in so you can appreciate the details of each bald eagle.

You know that saying pride goes before a fall? Well that was me earlier this month. You should have seen me, I was so proud of myself.

The week had already been crazy and it was the day we were to go to Cub Scouts. The pack was having a bake sale. The instructions I received was for our scout to bake a treat with someone who doesn’t usually cook. I thought this was a cute way of hinting that dads should be in the kitchen with their sons, but with my husband’s work schedule it just wasn’t happening.

I’m a decent baker, but I don’t do it often. I’m more of a from-the-box girl. Anyway, I was getting all ready to whip up some box cupcakes and noticed out of the four ingredients on the box, I was missing one: vegetable oil.

I swung by unannounced at a friend’s house because she makes everything from scratch. Like EVERYTHING, and it’s always delicious. That’s why I find myself going grocery shopping in her cupboard, thankfully she’s not easily annoyed. (Now that I read that I should probably write her a thank you note or buy her a gift card or some such.)

Anyway, I had all my ingredients and put my 3-year-old down for a nap. Logan loves to bake and so we had a blast in the kitchen. After the cupcakes were in the oven, I started dinner while Logan did his homework.

I tell you, I felt like I was on top of it. Usually as a mom I’m scrambling not to drown, but at this moment I felt like Supermom. Napping toddler? Check. Baking? Check. Homework? Check. Dinner? Yup, check.

Fast-forward a couple hours and Ethan’s awake, dinner is simmering and we’re getting ready to decorate these cupcakes. The main colors for scouts is blue and gold and I bought yellow cake mix and made blue icing. Now, by “made” I mean used cancer-causing artificial flavoring in a tub of buttercream frosting. The three of us had much fun and I thought I was being all clever by calling them “Cub cakes.”

When we walked into the scout meeting, Logan and I stopped dead in our tracks. We were greeted by a table of intricately decorated homemade treats. First were the cupcakes that had 3-inch-tall frosting Christmas trees on top, then came a gigantic sparkly snowman, a wreath, and that was just the holiday theme section. The second section’s theme was scouting and where my “Cub cakes” were to go. There was a bulls-eye cake with two flaming arrows, cupcakes where each one was a scene of scouts by the fire. My favorite were bald eagle cupcakes. The feathers were coconut shavings, the neck almond slivers and the beak was a cashew. I mean it was as if Pinterest had barfed all over these bake sale tables.

And then there were my globby, unnatural blue-colored Cub cakes. On a paper plate, hastily wrapped in aluminium foil.

What DIY-evil has descended upon the childhood bake sale? Is nothing sacred?

Ethan and I went for a quick walk to my car and I confessed to him.

“Man Ethan, I didn’t know the baked goods were going to be like that. Those treats look pretty awesome and our Cub cakes look terrible in comparison.”

“No it doesn’t mama, our cupcakes are wonderful,” he smiled.

Out of the mouths of babes.

“You’re right Ethan, our Cub cakes are spectacular.” They say parents raise kids, but I believe that kids also raise us.

Soon, though came the voting. Each scout group, called a den, had to inspect all of the desserts and choose the favorite. I was fine knowing that I was comfortably in last place. The first-place prize was a funfetti box cake. No big loss for me.

The dad running the meeting announced that next up was the bidding. Bidding!??! There’s going to be bidding!??! Who in their right mind would ever bid on my blue globs? The highest bidder paid $20 for the large snowman cake. I started thinking about how embarrassing it’ll be to have to pick my blue Cub cakes up from the bake sale table.

The meeting ended and Logan, Ethan and I slowly trotted to the tables. I looked at my bid sheet. Low and behold someone had bid a dollar. A whole dollar for a dozen Cub cakes!!! I was ecstatic!

“Why are you happy? You only got one bid?” Logan asked me.

“That’s fine, we only need one!”

I sauntered out to our car, one kid in each hand, Cub cake free.