Saturday, February 28, 2009

An Un'Frog'gettable Birthday Cake

Well over a month ago, I was asked by a friend if I would consider doing her sons 1st birthday cake. She has seen some of my cakes and liked what she'd seen. I was honored to make a cake for such a special occassion as a first birthday!

The cakes were for Aiden, and his party theme was Frogs! Joy did an amazing job at the party. Everything was themed and color coordinated just like I do for our parties. I for one appreciated all the hard work and thought that went into it all.

These are the cakes. The little one for Aiden to dig into and enjoy all on his own, and the other, to feed the party guests.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Grocery Day!

It's the end of the month and today was payday, which in turn means a MAJOR grocery shopping trip is needed. For the last couple of days, we've been skimping by on breakfast foods. We were out of just about everything and everyone was waiting for this day to come, when the house would once again be stocked with food.

I've been making a menu, and then in turn making a list of things we needed to make those meals. It's SOOO much easier to shop for groceries when I plan ahead and make a menu and then a list off the menu. I don't always stick to what's slated for the night, but I always have the ingredients to make all the meals I've planned for.

I have all these groceries and 'nothing good to eat'. I bought no chips, no crackers, no cookies, no ice cream (it would have melted, we weren't coming straight home). Ever feel like that after getting groceries???

Anyways, off to put tonight's dinner together...

Breakfast Sandwhiches...for Dinner!

Ever have one of those afternoons where you've not planned out ahead of time what you're having and you're at a loss for what to make?? One of the most easiest things to make are breakfast sandwiches!These sandwiches are made with Grands biscuits, egg, cheese, and bacon. I've made them with Thomas English Muffins (toasted) and sausage before. These are so easy, and yet oh so yummy. On our last camping trip, I baked the biscuits at home ahead of time, and made these one morning for breakfast and boy, was everyone impressed!

Sometimes I make these on the weekends when are mornings aren't so rushed to get out the door, after all,breakfast sandwiches aren't only good for dinner, but are good for breakfast too!

Thursday, February 26, 2009

God's Great Love

"When a child behaves badly, the child's mother loves him just the same. She may be grieved, disappointed, and hurt, but nothing the child can do will ever destroy her love.

If that is true of the imperfect human love, how much more so God's love! It is God's nature to love us. Nothing we can do or fail to do can stop the shining of that great love."

"The Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting"
Psalm 100:5

I received this short devotion from a dear friend just minutes after having dealt with Rachel's second sitting on the naughty chair this morning. Twice!!! Before it was even 7:30am!! Mornings like these makes are so hectic, scrambling for her to get dressed, have her hair done, shoes, etc, etc. I love her, but man, it sure gets my day off to the wrong start. LOL.

And then I received this encouraging word and was blessed to be reminded that there is nothing we can do to stop God's Great Love for us, no matter how many times "we're put on the naughty chair".

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Jack's Broken Head

What a great campaign Jack in the Box has going on right now.

They have this entire web site set as a result of Jack getting hit by a bus. He is currently in the hospital, in a coma, suffering from a broken head. Apparently they've been running commercials, but since we have TiVo, we don't watch commercials. You can see all the coverage of Jack's accident on this site Hang in There Jack. At the top of the website you can click on the "See this blog from first post" and it takes you to the very beginning of the story.

But today, and today only, Jack in The Box is giving away two free tacos when you bring this coupon in to a participating Jack in The Box. It's their way of saying Thanks for supporting Jack and his broken head.

On our way home from school, we stopped and got our free tacos. I had my coupon and Hannah had hers. If I knew it was going to be that easy, I'd have given Rachel a coupon as well!

There's still time, print out your coupon and get your free tacos!

Monday, February 23, 2009

I'm No Ace of Cakes, but...

About six years ago I took a cake decorating class at Micheal's Craft Stores. I did it primarily for when my children (then it was only Hannah) had birthdays as well as any family cakes, etc. However, over the years, I've done a few cakes for friends kids' parties, preschool events, etc.

Last Thursday, when I was at Walmart entering the cake decorating aisle, I ran into a dear friend from church. She was purchasing things she needed for her daughters Sweet 16 cake for the big upcoming party over the weekend. I stood there giving her ideas as to how she could decorated the cake, and then I finally just told her that I decorated cakes and I was more than happy help her if she needed my help. You could tell she was relieved at my offer.

I was blessed to be able to spend about four hours on Saturday morning putting together and decorating such a special occasion cake with a friend I love to spend time with. We had some good chuckles and some good fellowship. It was a wonderful Saturday morning...and the cake turned out great too!

This was my biggest cake thus far. The cake itself was six cakes, but we pieced it all together to be a three tier cake. I piped a star border with a tinge of yellow around each layer and we put black edible candies in the center of every other star.The party theme was that of a red carpet event with all the glitz and glam and stars. So each tier had those red ropes that keep people off the red carpet. And then of course a red carpet down the side of the cake. This is as far as we took the cake before it needed to be transferred to the party location. And this is the lovely girl who it was all for.This is the cake at the party location. All the stars and and shimmering things were added after transporting the cake. I think the cake turned out awesome! And the birthday girl loved it!I actually have another cake to do this weekend!! It's for a special little boy who's turning one and his party them is FROGS!!!

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Venting

Hannah's school is a public school that places emphasis on visual and performing arts. One of the yearly requirements is for each class to put on a performance of some sort. Some performances are short and some performances are long. Some performances are simple, and some are big, elaborate, planned out, and well, to be totally honest...a major pain in the butt.

Let me explain.

Hannah's class is combining with ten, yes ten, other classes this year for their performance. They have been working extremely hard on it for the last month and a half. Their big performance will be three days in the first week of March.

The performance I know will be amazing. One of the teachers has actually directed musicals and plays at one of the local theaters. She's worked with professionals and likes things to look professional. All qualities that add to a good performance.

But I have to be totally honest and say, that I CANNOT wait until this performance is done, over with, and behind us!

Within the first couple of weeks of deciding what to do, etc, etc. A note came home asking for $10 for a shirt that everyone, all twenty kids in all eleven classes will wear. Okay, no problem. Then a note came home saying all kids had to wear black pants, black socks, and black shoes. Um, okay. I had to go out and buy new black pants for Hannah because she'd gone through a growth spurt and the ones she had no longer were fit to wear out in public other than if camping when who cares what you look like. I also had to buy black socks, because she had none. And while she did own two pairs of black shoes up until recently, the boots finally bit the dust and broke at school (LOL....remind me to post about THAT phone call from the school nurse!), and the other pair comes off when she kicks, runs, skips and will be a problem considering in this performance she is kicking, dancing about, rolling on the floor, etc. Therefore, the hunt is on for a new pair of black shoes.

One of the other things that preparing for this performance required was to find a costume of a professional person that the student wanted to portray. My first thought was Hannah could be a nurse. Let her wear one of my old scrub tops, give her my stethoscope the day of the performance, even let her wear my nurses cap.

Nope. Too many nurses and doctors already.

Okay, back to square one.

How about a veterinarian, I had a cute scrub top with animals and paw prints and it was something Hannah REALLY wanted to do. Something she'd like to do when she grows up.

Nope. Too many kids already wearing scrubs as doctors, nurses, veterinarians.

How about a Karate instructor...NOPE.

How about a chef/cook? We food her apron and chef hat and she was really excited about this possibility. NOPE. Too many cooks/chefs.

They (the teacher in charge of this madness) kept the apron and decided if they folded it in half, she would be a waitress! Yea, cause that's professional. @@ <~~~ me rolling my eyes. So Hannah came home excited about that. And then on Tuesday, we were at school for a PTA meeting and we ran into Hannah's teacher in the hallway. She had just come from meeting with the teacher who is 'in charge'. She had this black top with a white lace collar and she told me that Hannah was now going to be a maid!! And that she was working on finding her a colorful feather duster. The first thought that came to my mind was the Halloween parade of 2007 when girls were dressed as French Maids, see my post and pictures about that one! And then I started thinking about what other parents will think if they think my daughter chose to be a maid?!?!? Truth be told, she didn't get to be anything she picked!!! Somewhere along the line, along all the frustration, we told Hannah to just roll with the punches and be cooperative. Yea, look where it got my daughter, she's a maid!

Today, when she got in the car, she told me the teacher told her she needed to wear black stretchy pants because it'll work better with the skirt she has to quickly slip on. HUH??? 1) I already bought new black pants specifically for this performance and 2) way back at the start of this, a friend asked if black leggings were okay to wear and we were told 'No'!

I am so frustrated over all this. And really, really can't wait for the first week of March to be over with. LOL.

Life

Hello. Is there anybody out there?? I've neglected my blogs for so long, I'm sure I'm just talking to myself. Which is fine. T...