8 1/2 Weeks and Counting

Well, there are 8 1/2 weeks until Christmas, which means there are 8 1/2 weeks until our little bundle of joy (our nicknames: Gossamer and Cousin It) is scheduled to arrive.  My oldest sister doesn't like to be reminded of how much time she has to get ready for Christmas.  I find that amusing, so being the ornery little sister that I am I never let her forget how much time is left.

Between my job, becoming a mommy, and publishing my in home baking business that I sort of started last winter (before I found a job), I will always have something to keep me on my toes.  That's okay though because I am up for the challenge!  I like my job (it seems that not everybody can say that about their job), I love my unborn baby, and I love baking!

Speaking of Christmas... have you started with your gift list yet?  I started months ago.  I am feeling very challenged because we are trying to make all of our gifts or give people something we already have that we no longer want/need.  We're poor, homemade gifts are more personable, and well... I just love making stuff.  I am even making a Christmas present for Gossamer, just in case he/she (we aren't finding out the gender) arrives by Christmas.  I sure hope Santa has something planned, just in case.  I made Gossamer a book; I made one for a niece a couple years ago on the computer, but by the time I figured up all my costs in the end it was $60.  This time, I am hand drawing everything myself, which is something I'm not very good at.  This book has the alphabet, colors, numbers, and a few of the basic shapes.  I put them in plastic sheet covers, which I already had from college, and put them in a three-ring binder, which I also already had from college.  I even colored in all of the pictures with crayons.  You can see pictures of a few pages below (notice that they aren't just any kind of mice, they're blind ones).  I thought it was important to have things that our child would be able to relate to, such as fairytales, things they'll see on the farm, songs we'll listen to, etc.

The Bun In Our Oven

Yep, we got a bun in the oven!  We found out on one holiday (Easter) and it's due on another holiday (Christmas Eve).  Interesting... we found out on the day Christ rose and we're due almost on the day Christ was born.

Rainbow Cake

Last Friday I (none other than A) made a VERY yummy (and pretty) cake to share with my family during our Memorial Day weekend camping extravaganda down by the farm pond.  I just HAD TO share it with you all.  I used a blog (http://www.omnomicon.com/rainbowcake) and a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgGqPg4Ca4w) to make my first ever rainbow cake.  I used the recipe on the blog and the pouring technique in the video.


Picture Descriptions:
Picture #1  The only two ingrediants (2 boxes of cake mix and 24 oz. of clear pop) in the cake PLUS my two special ingredients (vanilla extract and a little applesauce).  You can do the pop thing with any white cake recipe, apparently, and just bake it according to the directions on the box/recipe
#2 What happens when you put pop and cake mix together.
#3 The six pretty colors
#4 Just before going into the oven
#5 Halfway baked
#6 Done baking and cooling down
#7 My hideous frosted cake (24 oz. generic Cool Whip and two small boxes of vanilla pudding, with a little milk).  I was worried that I wasn't going to have enough (I used a lot to hold the brittle cake together) so I mixed more in that I had on hand.
#8 After the cake had been cut into

Just some notes

This was a YUMMY cake!  It had FANTASTIC flavor; it just didn't turn out very pretty is all.  I think this recipe (the pop thing) would work better as a single layer cake.  I have made several layered cakes, but I have never had so much trouble before.  I had a request from our 4 1/2 year old nephew (who doesn't really care for sweet stuff) and our 2 1/2 year old neice for a rainbow cake.  My oldest sister is even trying to think of an excuse to have one.  My entire family loved it, despite how bad it went together.  M isn't big on sweet stuff, although he eats them now and then, but even he loved it too.  Needless to say it was a big Memorial Day weekend campout hit!

I must say this.  I have been looking for a good homemade white cake recipe for a long time and haven't found one.  I take that back... I found a good one once, but the recipe got lost.  This is really good though!

Although it got put together really badly, my dear friend C told me something very improtant once, "Never apologize for anything that comes out of your kitchen."  I live by that now.



Waiting on M (from his wife's perspective)

The original version of this poem was recited by the actor who played Cody Lambert in the movie "8 Seconds."  I LOVE the poem (and the movie), so I've tweeked it to fit my needs.  I promise you, it isn't very good.  If you have something better, feel free to share.  We would love to read them.  Those of you that know us personally may be able to come up with something very clever!

I've been waiting on M
Ever since I recall
I started in April
And its coming on fall
I have me a bite
I think "I love you"
I get me some shuteye
I have me a 'Dew
Someone's lit a fire for him to go put out
Someone wanting him to build something
He's having himself a brew
Or he's on the dang phone
But I'll keep on waiting
Though I ain't pleased
Cause my husband
Has got the house keys

 UPDATE:
Does anybody else have a small house full of seeds that they've started?  We do.  There isn't a good place to put things or to cook because the seeds for our first garden are in the way.  Oh how I can't wait to get outside and start planting!  I am going to plant our lettuce and spinach in a big flower pot, and if we are lucky, it will keep producing all summer long without having to replant.  I am VERY excited to plant some flowers.  I will eventually have a few flower beds, but not until we get the grass fixed up better (we have to plant grass seed this year).  However, Mike and I agreed that I could do one flower bed this year at the end of the driveway.  I plan to put a bunch of perennials in it, along with chives and oregano.  I have a few bulbs already!  What makes it more exciting is that we are going to dig up some peonies from my grandma's house; my grandma originally dug those peony bushes up from her parent's farm.  Where they used to live is now pasture and run down farm buildings, but there is still one or two small peony bushes there.  I am very excited to have this piece of my family heritage at my house, forever.  Some day, I will give them to my own kids.  I wish I knew the exact year great-grandma planted them; it could easily be a 70 year old plant.  My grandma might have known at one point, but she has Alzheimers and lives in a care center.  Oh how the simple things in life makes life so great!

Super Bowl Sunday Update

Well, it is Super Bowl Sunday.  No big plans here except that we are going to a friend's house to watch the game.  Correction, M will watch the game.  I will watch the commercials, and play with the kids and visit with the other wife.  I have something WONDERFUL in the oven that a dear friend (we will call her "C") of mine taught me to make... pie, using lard for the crust.  This one is a cherry pie, with cherries from M's dad's cherry tree.
C is a great lady!  She is 60-some years old, with a spirit of somebody much younger than that.  Our friendship started with I asked Dad (during my second year of college) if I could go with him to her house on a Saturday night.  He brought me along, and we conversed with C, her husband, and some other guests.  It started to become a tradition for me to go with Dad to C's house on the Saturday nights that I was home, which was most of them.  We talked about everything from politics to religion, something they always say you should never talk about with other people.  

That summer I spent at home because I was done at one college and going to transfer to another that fall.  I started to go to C's house without even going with Dad, and I then started to go over to her house on weeknights as well as Saturday nights.  We had a ball!  It was a great comfort to have somebody (a friend) to talk to and easily go and visit (C lives not far from my parents), especially since my best friend lived so far away from where I was.  I think it was a night in June when two guys showed up at C's house.  One of those guys was my future husband, M.  We stayed late at C's house, all of us conversing and having a good time; we were just enjoying each others company.  Before we all left, M and his friend exchanged numbers with me.  (Over the next year, M and I sent a text or two to each other every now and then, and well... I think you can figure out the rest of the story there.)  When fall came, I started back to my new school, but I continued to come home most weekends.  When I did, I would stop and visit with C.

C giving her speech. NOTE TO THOSE THAT HEARD IT, we have lots of IOU's. (lol)

C became a very important person in my life (and M's), and I wouldn't give our friendship up for all the gold in the world.  She is so important to M and I that we had her in our wedding as the personal attendant, and we even asked her to give one of the speeches at our wedding reception simply because she knows us both so well.  We admire her fun-loving personality, her humor, and just the kind of person she is.  M an I are thankful that we know C and her husband because if it hadn't been for them we never would've met.  We love you C!

A lil extra info about C and her husband

M and I posing with the potato fork.

For my wedding gift, C decided to teach me how to make pie from scratch with lard (something I've always wanted to learn), but in order to learn I had to have all the right stuff, so one night she told M and I that she was going to get me everything I needed to make a pie (pie plate, rolling pin, etc.).  She didn't give me a new rolling pin, she gave me the rolling pin that she and her husband got as a wedding gift 40 or so years ago.  That meant a lot to me, and I will never give the rolling pin away, unless I'm on my death bed and giving it to somebody special.

When she told me about all the stuff she was going to give me, she asked her husband, "Well, what are you going to give M for a wedding gift?"  Her husband being the joker that he is replied, "Well, all he's going to need is a fork so that he can eat the pie."

The day that C was teaching my oldest sister and I how to make pie, we discussed exactly what kind of fork they needed to get M, and we all agreed that he needed a BIG fork.  Right before the wedding reception started, C and her husband gave M his fork, an old potato fork, and they wrote a note saying "Is this a big enough fork for you?"  We all had a great laugh over that one.