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.

Our First Christmas

We had a great first Christmas!  Santa brought M two movies ("A Christmas Story" and "Elf") and a new game for the Wii ("Cabela's Outdoor Adventures").  Some how his sister new Santa was bringing him that game because she got mike the orange Cablela's gun that goes with it.  Santa brought me an upright KITCHENAID white mixer.  I needed any excuse I could find to use it that day, so we invited some people over that evening and made homemade buttermilk pancakes with it and cooked some bacon.  Yummy!  We recieved some other wonderful gifts from our families, including a rusty star to put on our house, and a nice brown sweater for myself.  We got some hygeine stuff in our stockings, so they must think we smell bad or something. lol Just kidding.  It's actually a good idea I think!  You gotta have deoderant, Q-tips, etc. anyways so why not use 'em as a stocking stuffer so that people don't have to go buy more when they run out.  I think I now have a like a 2-year supply of body wash that has been given to me (either as a stocking stuffer or just because they didn't want it); that's great because that's one less thing I have to buy.  We are poor and trying to save money anyways, so why not?!
M smoked a salmon that he took to my family's x-mas.  Everybody that tried it said that it was good.  I'm a picky eater so I didn't try it, but it sure did smell good!  I'd like for him to smoke me some cheese sometime, then I could have and endless supply of smoked cheese.  Mmmmmm....

Wedding Pictures

Here I have posted a few pictures from our wedding.  I have written a caption for each picture below the picture.



 Releasing the balloons after the ceremony.

 The balloons that we released all together before the ceremony.

 The main cake on the cake table.  Notice the sunflower cupcakes and the his and her cakes on each side of it which are cut off in the picture.

 The ceremony behind the barn.

 The free balloons floating in the sky.

 My cake with an Allis Chalmers fondant tractor.

 M's cake with a John Deere fondant cake.

 My pa and me riding up to the ceremony in the horse and carriage.  The only people that knew about the carriage was my family, me, and anybody else that has been to either of my big sister's weddings.

 The bridal party (except the 4 kids), M, and I.

 My something blue and wedding shoes.

 M and I walking towards the soybean field to get some pictures.

 The wall of M and me!  This was behind the DJ.  It consists of the firefighter cross (with blue flames) painting and ISU painting that I painted (with help from my mom) for M last year for Christmas, a buck that M's cousin shot, and my Wizard of Oz lights.

This was what the weather was doing a day or two before the wedding.

Our memorial wall with our loved ones pictures (names have been removed for privacy).

Where the ceremony was held, without all the people.  The haybales and chairs were for the people that couldn't stand the entire ceremony; everybody else stood.

The cookie and mint table.

New Family Members

Saturday, M and I adopted a pup from a local pound.  He is thought to be a lab/shepard mix, is close to a year old, and we named him Nitro.  Why Nitro you ask?  He is a VERY spirited dog that likes to chew everything he can get his teeth on, and he loves to play.  Basically, he is ornary; he's so full of life.  M wanted to name him Cyclone (after ISU) which would've been very fitting, but Nitro just seemed like a much better name.  When my 4 year old nephew was asked for an idea for his name, he suggested Sally.  We laughed but decided we didn't want our dog to have gender issues.  Last night Nitro got ahold of a box with a few full beer cans in it that somehow got left on the porch.  Nitro found it, emptied the cans out of the box, and left bits and pieces of the box on the porch and grass.  He's a lil scoot!

Our second new family member is the goldfish I got yesterday.  He his orange and white.  We were trying to think of names, and M first came up with orangey (very original).  Then, we decided on O.J. (like orange juice), and M proceeded to add "Simpson" to O.J.'s name.  He's a gold fish, so there's nothing too exciting about him, but it is still nice to have a lil goldfish.

10 Day Anniversary

Well, M and I have been married for ten days now, and we haven't gotten sick of each other yet.

We are in our house and slowly moving things in a little at a time.  We slept the first couple of nights on an air mattress, but as soon as the electrical inspector OKed our house, we moved the bed and couch in.  I have never been so happy to have a mattress to sleep on.

Our wedding day was absolutly perfect; the good Lord was looking out for us.  The weather that day was perfect, whereas the day before and after were very windy and a little rainy.  There are so many beautiful pictures that family and friends took of us, and I am eager to see the photographer's pictures.  I will have to post a few at a later date.  The photographer just called... I'm going to go get our pictures right now!  She said they are on 7 CDs! lol

The short story of M and A

M and I are a couple of "crazy cats" living in rural Iowa.  M is 30, and I am 22.  I have three sisters, and he has one half brother, one half sister, one step sister, and two full sisters.  Between the two of us we have 10 wonderful nieces and nephews whom we love deeply and no children of our own.  We also have 5 parents total whom love us very much.

Our relationship started August 15, 2009, and we got engaged exactly two months later (10/15/2009).  It was a Thursday evening, M and I were talking on the phone (because I was 1.5 hours away at college).  M called and my dad for permission to marry me.  He called immediately and popped the question.  In my eyes it was the perfect proposal.  :)

M started building our home about the end of July last year, and we are just moving into this this week.  We only have concrete floors in our house, curtains to doors inside the house, and no trim but it is livable and that's all that matters to us.

Between building our house/shop, the wedding, and me finishing college it has been a crazy year but well worth it.

We don't have internet at our house, and we probably won't for a while.  If we need the internet real quick for something we will have to survive using my parent's dial-up or his dad and step-mom's high speed.  Basically, until we have internet of our own we won't be on here for very long.

Balloons

"M" and I ("A") are getting this Saturday (September 4, 2010) at my parent's farm in Creston, Iowa.  We, along with our family and close friend, will be releasing balloons after our ceremony, rather than blowing bubbles or anything like that.  If you found one of our balloons that we release, this is where we would like you to comment at.  Please let us know the date and location in which you found the balloon.  If we get time, we would like to assign each balloon a number and assign that number to an individual guest, so if you see a number on it (Example: #5) please give us the number that corrisponds with the balloon that you found.  We are curious to see just how far the balloons will travel before popping.  Thank you for your cooperation.