From April 20 through April 30, Occasionally Cake of Old Town Alexandria and Mount Vernon is going nuts over National Pecan Month featuring turtle and pecan praline gourmet cupcakes, and when you buy three pecan cupcakes, you get a FREE fourth cupcake of your choice. Call (703) 647-9638 or visit www.occasionallycake.com for more information.

“Pecans are a great healthy snack, I love to grab a handful when I’m on the go” said Sabrina Campbell, Occasionally Cake owner. “Our pecan turtle cupcake and pecan praline cupcake give you that nutty flavor of pecans with the blended sweetness of caramel and sugar,” said Campbell.

Both Alexandria cake boutiques offer more than 100 cake and gourmet cupcake flavors. Occasionally Cake is also renowned for their cake truffles. Instead of discarding leftover cake, it became the centerpiece of their cake truffles, and then dipped in Belgian chocolate.

Metropolitan Fine Arts Center (MFAC) of Alexandria and Fairfax Station, Va. will be offering dance classes on Mon., Mar. 4 at its third location, The Athenaeum at 201 Prince Street in Old Town Alexandria, Va. The Athenaeum dance classes are only offered on Mondays and Tuesdays. Schedules and fees can be viewed at www.metrofinearts.com.

MFAC of Old Town Alexandria will teach ballet, hip-hop and jazz for adults and children, as well as MetroBarre, the mind/body program, combining the best of Pilates, yoga and ballet barre training.

“We are thrilled to offer our classes to the Old Town Alexandria community...we know that Old Town will be a perfect fit for our programs,” said Melissa Dobbs, founder and executive director of Metropolitan Fine Arts Center of Alexandria and Fairfax Station, Va. “Old Town Alexandria is known for its cultural and artistic events, an ideal setting for our MFAC classes,” said Dobbs.

Each day in America, it is estimated that 160,000 students stay home from school to avoid being bullied. If you take a look at the media headlines in any given week, it’s easy to see that bullying is a growing problem in our schools. The good news is that it is a problem that many teachers can help tackle by creating a bully-free classroom, something that is easier to do than one might think.

“We all know that bullying is a major concern in our schools,” explains Peter J. Goodman, author of the book “We’re All Different But We’re All Kitty Cats.” “But there are things teachers can do to help address this problem and prevent it from happening.”