my Grandpa - please pray

my grandpa is in the hospital right now after a really bad fall. please pray... please...

Whiteboard sessions

Yall are missing a great conference! That pic (blurry) is of chris joyner leading worship at a pretty sweet conference im attending today, called the whiteboard sessions! : ) ill post more l8r im back to praising! : )=

Future mother's day

: ) i got these for 'future mother's day.'
they are currently gracing my desk at work! : )
aint they purty? : )

Award Winning

So a few weeks ago the photo group at church went on a field trip.
Following the field trip everyone sent their top photos in for a contest.
MINE WON! :) HOLLA!
I just wanted to brag.      :)
Here is the pic!

DBC - Cheesecake Pops :)

OK, so here are a few of the pics I took of my DBC this month. Yes, I know I'm a late poster.

So sue me! hahaha :)

Here is a picture of my coworkers. We are all enjoying YUMMY cheesecake! :)
Back Row: (From left to right) Lauren, JR, Warren, Richard, Donny, Richard.
Front row: Sharon, Mika, Wendy

So pretty you could almost eat it... wait... almost??? ;)

I had to drizzle choco, because the cheesecake didn't really stick to the lolipop stick as tightly as I expected. The chocolate (once it hardened) really helped keep the cheesecake attached though.

I had to package the pops for transport to work.

My "cheesy" cheesecake transport system. haha... a styrofoam star from the craft store. It actually worked surprisingly well!!! :)

talk about CHEEZY. this is me.

The girls, hoggin the cheesecake! :)

Not every cheesecake pop made the cut for the coworkers.... :(

Not every cheesecake pop even turned into a pop at all!!!! Some were SUPER sad.

Unwrapped.

I had a LOT of ideas for yummy flavors. Banana and peanutbutter, heath bar, caramel, coconut, slivered almonds, cinamon chip... because I had sooo much trouble getting the cheesecake to stick to the pops, I just kept it simple. There were a few heath bar pops and this one banana pop, other than that, plain choco all the way... maybe next time...

DBC - cheesecake pops

Ok, so i know the rules of the daring bakers, but i have had NO time lately I completed the challenge but i have yet to post. Im sooo sorry.

I made the pops one sunday evening and brought them to work for my peeps to enjoy there. : ) it was really fun, and my co-workers really seemed to enjoy the pops.

He cheeecake pops were super yummy, but that they werent as easy to handle as i expected. My pops never really adhered to the sticks and i spent a lot of time trying to gingerly hold em and add the chocolate/toppings. I ended up putting the choco topping in a pastry bag and piping it on. That seemed to be my only option if i wanted actual pops instead of a bowl of cheesecake flavored chocolate.

Anyhow... As usual, it was another splendid challenge. I heart the daring bakrs! : )

Ill post more lata once i get the pictures resized for the blog! : )

This is my front porch this morning! : )

Haha!=

Pnut! :)

Yay! The first baby picture is here!!!!! :) This is Pnut at about 8 weeks! :)



And yes, I know the picture is upside down.  The lil' tyke is more easily viewed that way.  :)

kiddies... again

So... i usually don't watch you tube stuff that often... don't know why... just don't. well yesterday and today i've been watching a few home videos of kids and some are just too darn cute. this first one is a clip about a lil' girl who gets asked what she would do if she saw a monster. holy cow. too cute. i guess you can't help but laugh!



i don't know if i've mentioned this before, but my parents got a wii. i think they really like it. i haven't gotten to play it with them at home yet (we did play together last easter on my old roomie's wii). it was a good time. well when i saw this video of this lil' kid watching his pops play wii, i just couldn't hold in the laughter. soooooo cute. adults and kids (even super little ones) LOVE the wii!!! :)



i guess kiddies are on my mind since i'm going to be an auntie sometime in early novemeber. i've said this before, but my best friend, heather is gonna be a momma. she is in her third month now!!!! i can't believe it!!! so in addition to watching kids videos on you tube, i've been totally scoping out the stellar baby stuff they have these days. i've been sending her links to super cool stuff like its my job! gucci baby slippers, jeep strollers, baby bottle warmers... the list goes on. if any of yall have any good stuff heather and p-nut (and mike too!) can't live without, please let me know. i'll pass on the good ideas! :)

for now, enjoy the totally cute baby movies. :)

pa-sicke

OM. this is one of those clips that makes me wish i was a mamma. too cute



but then i see something like this, and it reminds me that i'm just not ready to be a parent...



:)

OHS - Live Auction

This weekend Jess volunteered to help at her high school's 40th anniversary party.  
Jess' mom, Jennie and I came to help too.  
We worked hard, but we also had fun checking out the
CRAZY outfits people showed up in!  Haha.  
Let's just say some people need to watch "What Not To Wear" a bit more often! haha :)  
All meanness aside, it was a fun evening hanging out with the girls!
Check out what we did:



Here is a pic of Jennie being welll... Jennie!  :p



Jess was in charge of the Silent/Live Auction.  She did SUCH a great job!  This is a pic of Jennie holding one of the Live Auction items, a football signed by Joe Gibbs.



Here is Jess' momma in front of one of the live auction tables.



The Live Auction Table



Jennie'n'Jess



The Three Stooges haha :)



Sooo we definitely worked hard all night, but it wasn't serious all evening.  These (creepy) Cougar hats were calling our names all night.  Here is Jess (left) and Jennie (right) having a bit of fun.



(jess)



(jennie)

"The Last Lecture"

Wow.

His speech kinda reminded me of Tim McGraw's song "Live Like You Were Dying"

"And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denyin'
And he said some day I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dyin'"

Caker Baker

This month's Daring Baker Challenge was Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake. YUM! The cake is lightly lemon flavored with lemon buttercream icing. I made this cake the weekend of Easter, when my parents and other numerous guests were in town (13 ppl in all!!!!). I had a great helper, (ok, forced labor) Bryan. We are going to have to work on reading directions and ingredient amounts, but all in all it was a fun experience. The final product was stellar too, so that helped!!! :) I will definitely make this cake again! :)

This is Bryan turning plain sugar into LEMON sugar! Tasty! :)


I read that a lot of the other Daring Bakers had difficulty with their cakes rising. I will say I thought my cake looked a bit flat, but I think the consensus was that this cake just doesn't rise a whole heck of a lot. Despite its seeming flatness, the cake was moist on the inside. I will say I bought the square "goldtone" cake tins from Williams-Sonoma for this challenge, and I was VERY pleased with the results. The cake did not stick at ALL to the sides of the pan. I still used butter and parchment on the pan, but sometimes even those measures are fallible. I would totally recommend those cake pans to anyone!

The recipe we were given suggests using seedless raspberry jelly as a filling for the cake... well of course I didn't want to use just plain old raspberry jelly... I wanted to use raspberry, blueberry, cherry jelly, with seeds. When I was in the store, I thought to myself that I would just heat the jelly a bit and then run it through a sieve to get the seeds out before applying the jelly to the cake.... wellllllll... despite my best intentions, that was a really bad idea. First of all, the jelly I bought was more like a compote than a jelly. It was SUPER chunky. I doubt even if I had been able to get all of the chunks/seeds out of my jelly that I would have had enough remaining juice to put some on my cake!!! So luckily I had purchased some strawberries (to use for breakfast the following morning - whoops!) that filled the bill. All in all, this boo boo turned out really well. I was happy with the cake, its looks and its taste! :)

The finished cake


a lil' slice of heaven


my Easter houseguests! :) My parents, Bryan, roommates, parents of another roommate, and friends. What a full house!


This cake was soooo goood, here is a picture of my dad sneaking an extra piece in the kitchen! The picture is blurry because he was moving so quickly, I could barely capture him on film!!! haha :)

This was a great challenge - I can't wait to see what next month has in store!!! :)