Everyone who hears these words of Mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. Matthew 7:24-25

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Lucky 7

I’m a bad blogger, I know. I let an anniversary AND a birthday go by last week without even mentioning them.


The Tool Man and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary last Thursday. Wow! Ten years. I can hardly believe that. It seems like it’s been only two minutes…………....under water. Ha Ha! Just kidding.


And then there’s this business of Ty turning 7. Talk about hard to believe! Where has the time gone? He’s still supposed to be a little baby. I can remember being his age and thinking that there was a big distinction between a 6 year old and a 7 year old. I don’t know why, but I always felt that this birthday marked the transition between being a “little” kid and being a “big” kid. I guess that means my little monkey is a big monkey now.


I think I mentioned to y’all once before that every year I take a picture of Ty at the exact time of his birth.


Well this year I forgot!!!!!


Not. (I’m sorry. Was that mean?)


No, I didn’t forget. Are you kidding? I even had timers set to go off just in case I lost track of time.


2:11 PM. Thank heavens he wasn’t born at 2:11 AM!


So here they are…well, most of them anyway. I’m having a hard time tracking down these pictures. Our digital photos are scattered among at least three different laptops. (Note to self: Organize digital photo files.) So I had to leave out Ty’s “exactly 2” and “exactly 4” pictures.


Here’s my monkey right after I “laid him. Ha ha. That’s what Ty calls it, anyway. Not the best picture in the world, but I think it’s the first one we ever took of him.


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And just in case you didn’t notice…


He was BLUE! That little stinker wouldn’t breathe. He got over that though.


Obviously.


Here’s a better picture of him, right before he turned yellow. Yep, he went from blue to yellow. Jaundice. I guess you could say he was my little rainbow baby.


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One year old and waiting in line at the airport to go on his first cruise. Life ain’t fair, is it?


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Two years old. I haven’t been able to find his “exactly two” picture yet. This particular photo was taken at his birthday party, which was actually a couple of weeks after his second birthday.


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Three years old. And just back from his second cruise. Life really ain’t fair!


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Four years old……….still looking……….


Five years old!


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Six years old.


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And Lucky Number 7!


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Lulu was dying to get in on the picture-taking.


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Sorry it’s been so long since I last put something up for y’all. I’ve been so busy planning a birthday party and getting ready for VBS that I don’t really have any new pictures to share. We are planning on doing a little home improvement around here this holiday weekend, so hopefully, I’ll get to show you a few pictures of that soon. And of course there’ll be tons of birthday party photos to share with everyone later next week.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Elmo Cake

My latest cake creation was a pair of Elmo cakes for two-year-old Layla. I made an Elmo head smash cake for the birthday girl and a full-body Elmo cake for all her guests.


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To make the cake for Elmo’s body, I used my Pink Panther cake pan. I’ve never been a fan of the really specific character pans. I’m just not one for “uni-taskers.” But with a little imagination and a carving knife, you can change just about any shaped pan into something you can use. After I decapitated the Pink Panther, I replaced his head with a 6” round cake that I carved with Elmo’s features. I also shaved off the Pink Panther’s tail.


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Here’s the smash cake after I carved it and covered it with a crumb coat. Elmo’s eyes and nose (and mouth) are covered with fondant.


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For Elmo’s fur I just used buttercream. As I iced the cake, I lifted the buttercream with my spatula to resemble Elmo’s furry coat.


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And, no, Elmo is not giving the peace sign. He’s holding up a “2” for the birthday girl.


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My next cake is going to be Ty’s Angry Birds cake. I really want to go all out on this one, but with all the other planning I have to do for the party, I may lose my nerve. The Tool Man has been helping me design this cake. He wants it to be interactive, but that sounds like a lot of unnecessary trouble to me. I guess we’ll all just have to wait and see how it turns out.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

You’re Getting Very Hungry………

Y’all are going to be craving something sweet after reading this post. The Tool Man and I are working on getting some pictures of my pies and cakes for some advertising for Fox’s. Some customers seem to have a hard time believing that these desserts are really homemade. So we figured what better way to prove it than to take some pictures of me “homemaking” them.


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I think it’s only fair to warn you that the following pictures may cause your stomach to start growling.


My first Apple Pie in the pizza oven. It turned out PERFECT!!! No one was more surprised than me. It ain’t easy to cook anything but pizza in a pizza oven. The oven has blowers spaced throughout that blast the top of the pizza with hot air. This is good for pizza. But for pies and cakes? Not so much. So you’ve got to be mighty particular about how you cook in there.


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Strawberry Cream Pie. Tastes like strawberry cheesecake ice cream…Yummo! (I used to get that at the Derrick all the time.) This pie sells like crazy. We can’t keep enough of it on hand.


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The Tool Man’s favorite…Lemon Meringue Pie. Another thing about pizza ovens…the cooking space is very “short.” The first meringue pie I tried to cook in there was too tall to fit in the oven.


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One of my favorites…Hershey Bar Cake. Cakes are terribly hard to cook in the pizza oven. The blowers I mentioned earlier cause the cakes to cook very unevenly. I’ve had cakes come out a whole inch thicker on one end than the other.


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Hope I haven’t made you too hungry.


My mission for the day is to find a great recipe for a cheesecake and bake it. Whoop! Whoop! That is my all time most favorite dessert ever!!! Just cheesecake. No cherries. No strawberry sauce. Not even chocolate. Just cheesecake! Picadilly has the best. One of the best presents I ever got was when my dad secured a whole cheesecake from the Picadilly for me the day Lucy was born. I say “secured” because the Picadilly had caught on fire the night before, and they were closed for business. I don’t know how he did it, but he got me that cheesecake. Miraculous!

Warning: Adorable Monkeys Ahead

(Sorry about the blogging delay. I’ve been trying to publish this post for a week now, and Blogger hasn’t been cooperating with me.)


For the past several years, I’ve taken the monkeys over to the Biedenharn Museum for a photo shoot in the garden. I fully intended to take them again this year, but between rain, and cold, and cruises, I wasn’t able to make it before the azalea and tulip blossoms faded.


So I improvised, and we stepped out the front door for some pictures in our own front yard. The monkeys were surprisingly accommodating. Ty was doing all sorts of posing and flower smelling (he thinks that makes for the best pictures.) Lucy was a busybody, as always, but I just chased her around and let her do her thing while I snapped some pictures of her.


I thought I might ought to warn you….


These monkeys are incredible CUTE!


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See? I told you.

Monday, May 9, 2011

One More Easter Post

Just a few more pictures to share with you from our Easter Egg Hunt at church.


We started the night off with some finger foods and treats for the kids. Lucy was partial to the Cheetos, of course. Looks like she’s headed straight toward Mom’s white shirt with those cheesy fingers and sticky sucker.


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Nah!


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My wonderful, wacky, warthog of a husband.


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Must. Get. Candy.


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It didn’t take Lucy long to figure out what Easter egg hunts were all about. She had a little trouble with this basket though. See how she’s holding it? All of her eggs kept falling out.


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Sandy helped Lucy out on the hunt.


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Talk about just out of reach. Now this really isn’t fair.


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Dad…always there when you need him.


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Time for egg games. There’s something about playing with REAL, raw eggs that kids just love. It must be the possibility of getting slimy, icky goo all over you. Yeah, kids like stuff like that – weirdo’s.


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The group with their plunder.


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