Hi everyone!

Hope 2013 is treating you well.  We’re off to a good start, I guess.  Kind of procrastinating getting the decorations down.  I’m usually more on top of this.  Once the 12 days of  Christmas is over, I’m packing things up.  I did move a step in the right direction today, though.  I asked David to bring the storage boxes back out so I could pack them.

So…maybe tomorrow all the pretty Christmas decorations will go back into storage?  Or at least start tomorrow?  I don’t have high expectations of getting everything down since we have lights on the outside of the house, too.  Actually, come to think of it, I KNOW they won’t all get put up tomorrow, because sweet hubby has to work late.

The crib/toddler bed (it’s convertible) is still in the foyer.  Right where hubby left it after Peamite Bravo insisted that he put her “big girl bed” together right then.  (Santa brought her a twin bed since she outgrew her toddler bed.) To be fair, I do have someone coming by this week to pick it up, so we’ll say that’s why it’s been there…since Christmas.

She looooves her new bed.  You would have thought it was the best gift ever.  As soon as David got it put together, we put on the sheets and she tried it out.

Hope this year brings you lots of blessings!

I’m sure each of us as parents have disappointments in ourselves from time to time.  It’s just life…we’re not perfect, we’re human, and we forget.

Yesterday morning Peamite Alpha had a dentist appointment where he had a tooth removed.  He was so excited and asked if the Tooth Fairy would come for it.  I told him of course, we just need to put it under his pillow before he went to sleep.

As he was getting ready for bed, I made a mental note to put money under his pillow.  We read our bed time stories, sang our songs, and gave kisses good night.  David and I retired to the living room for a couple of hours of kid-free relaxation where I promptly forgot about my aforementioned mental note.

We went to bed without a second thought.

When David came back this morning from taking Carter to school,

he asked, “Hey, you know what we forgot last night?”

Ohhhhhh.  Small pang felt in my heart.

He continued, “Yeah, when I went in his room to get him up for school, he was just lying there with the light on.  I asked him what he was doing, and he said, ‘Just waiting on the Tooth Fairy.’”

Oh. My. Gosh.  Big pang felt in my heart.

I felt terrible.  I felt so bad that I had disappointed my little guy.  “I’m such a bad mom!”  I thought and later expressed to David.

David said he had explained to Carter that it was his fault that she didn’t come because he had stayed up late working, so he must have scared her away.

This evening, I put my camera on his dresser and told him we’d try to catch a picture of her this time.  He excitedly put his tooth under his pillow.  This time, I had a reminder set on my phone, David had one on his phone, and the gold dollar to put under his pillow in my pocket.

We were ready this time!  I snuck sneaked into his room and snapped a picture and carefully made the exchange.

I photoshopped in a silhouette of a tooth fairy to be able to show him tomorrow that we caught her!  I saw the idea on Pinterest, and went to the linked website thinking I would upload the picture, but then discovered they wanted $9.95.  Yeeeahh…no thanks.  So, my version isn’t as cute, but hey, it’ll serve the purpose, and I like it!

Hopefully he will completely forget about this morning when he sees his shiny gold dollar tomorrow morning!

This is a quick and delicious treat that you can customize for any event.  With Halloween right around the corner, I tinted the white chocolate yellow and tossed in some candy corn and semi-sweet chocolate chips.

I think it lasts about 3 or 4 days covered in an airtight container, but really I haven’t gotten to test it since it’s usually gone within a day or two!

I’m still a big ole kid that likes to draw and color with crayons.  So, in order to play put this talent to good use, I decorated the paper table coverings at a recent church pot luck.  Most of them are inspired by word art that I’ve seen on the web, well, mostly Pinterest.

I love these verses and they speak to my heart.  Let them do the same for you.  Enjoy!

Y’all.  It was down to the wire.  The cake almost won.  I persevered and conquered it AND the clock (well, sort of, I was 15 minutes behind schedule, but it could have been A LOT worse!)

I seriously under estimated the time it would take me to decorate these 2 cakes.  And for all intents and purposes, we could really say it was 3 cakes since one of them was double-sided, right?

I was going along Thursday and most of Friday thinking I was right on track.  La de dah, I’m moving right along, being productive, yada yada.  I think reality hit about 7 pm Friday evening when I realized, Wait…I should be almost done with one cake and starting the other by now.

Actual status at the point of realization: The cakes were stacked and iced, but not a single stitch of decorating done to either. *facepalm*

Now, for some decorators my predicament may have been no big deal, but I’m kind of a slow worker, so it turned into a laaaaate night.  From what I’ve gathered from other cakers, late nights just come with the territory.  I’m a night owl anyway, but if it’s past 12:30 am, I get even slooooower.  Three AM my bed finally welcomed me.

Eight AM my alarm (and children) alerted me to a new day (well, with the sun shining) to get busy working.  I am a person that seriously needs all 8 hours of sleep to feel good.  Five hours of sleep is not cool, dude.

See all that fur on Cookie Monster?  Every bit of that was pressed out of my fondant extruder.  I bet I filled the extruder 10 bajillion times, which in and of its self is a chore.   I thought, yet again, I’m moving along alright, I should be done in a couple of hours.  Fast forward FOUR hours later – I’m starting to panic.  I still have the WHOLE back of ole Cookie Monster to go, and my deadline is in ONE hour.  I’m tired. My back hurts from decorating non-stop.  I’m hungry because who has time to eat when they’re decorating like a mad woman.

A tear started to ooze out of the corner of my eye.  The pain. The fatigue. The stress.  All wrapped up in that tear.

No time for crying! Go, go, GO!  There’s a baby out there that needs their birthday cake!

My awesome hubs helped me as best as he could and I made it.  I was so relieved.

Know what I did as soon as I walked in the door after delivering the cakes?  Took a long, hot bubble bath…and took a huge sigh of relief.

Hi everyone.  I’m actually still here.  For quite some time, I’ve been trying to decide what to share with you all.  I thought of lots of things…became overwhelmed, and basically disappeared for a little while.  Sorry. I’ve been thinking of y’all.

Please, come hang out with me again.  Lots has happened since we last spoke.  For instance, my son began KINDERGARTEN this year. He’s doing great and already reading some words! 

Then, my daughter began pre-school 2 days a week and dance lessons once a week. 

And if that wasn’t enough milestones going on in my life, I turned the big THREE – OH.  Yup.  I turned 30 a little over a week ago.

My sweet friend, Stephanie, made me these gorgeous cupcakes!

I’ve been really busy each weekend with cakes, too.  Since they take up so much of my time, I thought I should start sharing more of them over here in this part of my world with you!  I created a Cake Gallery so you could peruse pictures of cakes I’ve created!  The gallery will have more pictures soon.  I have slow internet, so it takes a while to upload pics, so I just do a few at a time before I get bored/aggravated and want to move onto something else.

Here’s a cake that I made for one of Carter’s classmates who shares a birthday with me.  It’s one of my favorites that I’ve ever made.  I adapted the design from Calamity Cakes’ version.

Tell me what kinds of things you like to hear and we’ll talk about it.  You can bring a cup of coffee, and I’ll have my cup of hot chocolate, and we’ll have ourselves a good ole internet coffee date.

Peanut butter is a staple in this household.  We make countless PB&Js or as my son calls them, “Peanut Butter Jelly Times” (because of this popular YouTube video)

In an impromptu making of peanut butter cookies, I decided to bring jam to the party.   Just make your favorite peanut butter cookie recipe (a good one is the one on the side of the JIF jar!) and using a cookie scoop or a rounded tablespoon, scoop out balls of cookie dough onto the cookie sheet.  Using the back of a rounded teaspoon, make a small well in the ball of cookie dough and fill with a teaspoon of your favorite jam or jelly.

I love strawberry jam.  Dearest Husband loves grape jelly.  They were my experiment, so I made them with my favorite.

Bake as usual and cool.

I wake up from a very heavy sleep when my phone buzzes alerting me to a message I’ve received.  I could tell at that moment, I had slept hard.  The kind of deep sleep that you can feel heavy in your chest, and your eyelids feel like weights.  About that time, Peamite Bravo climbs over me to get out of my bed.

“When did she get here?” I thought.

I told David, “I must have been out, because I don’t remember her getting in the bed with us last night.”  He looks at me incredulously and tells me, “She came in here when there were loud claps of thunder.”

Really?  I hadn’t heard a thing.

I get my phone off my bedside table and start scrolling through Facebook.  A friend posted a tree that came down on her house during the storm last night.

Again, I think, really?  I didn’t hear a thing.

I think over the last few days, well, week really.  It has been filled with late nights and early mornings, and it finally caught up with me.  I praised the Lord this morning when realization washed over me.  He knew I was weary, and He gave me the renewing I needed to face my new week.  He provides for everything you need – even sleep.  No storm was going to keep this light sleeper up!

I love the Red, White, and Blue proudly displayed, and what better way than in the form of food?

We had a fun cupcake decorating party at my church to celebrate the Fourth of July.  We made a cute flag out of m&ms and fun star cut out cupcakes that I’ll show you today!

To start the star cut out (or any shape cut out really), cut the cupcake top off with a serrated knife level with the cupcake liner.

Then, using a small cutter, punch out the shape on the cupcake top.

Spread icing on the flat cupcake now.  You can make your icing any color so that color peeks through the cut out when you put the top back on.

You could leave it like this, especially if you have a nice pop of color coming through from your icing.  I decided to go one step further and fill it in with some red, white, and blue sprinkles for a nice patriotic look.

At the cupcake decorating party, we had cake’s best friend, ice cream!  To make our sundaes special, we had fruit to top them with.  Look at this patriotic fruit flag we whipped up!  Blueberries for the blue, strawberries for the red stripes, and bananas for the white stripes.  It was such a hit, and a nice centerpiece for the Sundae Bar.

Hope y’all have a great holiday!  Be safe and have fun!

These potato chips are a hit at my house.  In fact, they don’t last long at all!  And, since they’re homemade, flavor is customizable!

Start off by slicing the potatoes really thin.  I use my food processor fitted with the 2mm slicing attachment.  These make them thin enough for me, but really, I would like to get them even thinner so they’ll cook up crispier.  I’ve had my eye on The Pampered Chef Simple Slicer anyway, and its smallest cut is 1/16th of an inch, so it’d be a tiny bit thinner than the 2mm slice.

I digress.

Get several paper towels and lay them out on the counter and place the slices (not overlapping) on the paper towels and sprinkle each slice with salt.  Let them sit for at least 10 minutes.  The salt will draw the moisture out of the potato, making a crispier chip.

Don’t worry about the chips being too salty, most of it is wiped off.  Once the moisture is pulled out of them, take some more paper towels and dab the potato slices to soak it up.

You can leave them as is and have a great plain chip, or season with your flavor of choice.  Tony Chachere’s is a favorite for my husband and myself.

Bake in 400 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until golden and crispy!