Riddle

What is greater than God, more evil than the devil, the poor have it, the rich want it, and if you eat it you will die?

Our musical talent

The musical talent is just rushing through our blood! :0)
Don't they look like future rock stars?!!

Here's a sneak peak of the future all girl group!

How we spent our Memorial Day weekend...

Teaching the girls what Memorial Day is truly about
Swimming with and without bathing suits (unprepared mommy didn't bring their bathing suits in the above picture). But who needs a bathing suit when you can just swim in clothes?
Blowing bubbles!!! What a great time Leah was having chasing the bubbles.
Playing cornhole, and blowing more bubbles.
We started out the weekend cooking out with some good friends, and ended up going to two other cookouts over the weekend. Jimmy was actually off, so we all enjoyed a lot of family time together.

I'm grateful to all the men and women who have served and those who are today serving our country! THANK YOU! My words alone cannot begin to express the gratitude I have for the sacrifices you and your family make to allow me and my family to live such an awesome life in an awesome country! May God bless you all.

We must have done something right!

I picked the kids up early from school yesterday and so I was able to go into their classes to get them. As I walked in Hannah's classroom, her teacher told her to show me the assignment they did about what kind of house they would want to live in. Mrs. Hinton asked the children what kind of house they would want to live in if they could live in any type of house in the whole world. I saw a few others as we were looking for Hannah's, one boy wanted to live in a glass house with lots of fish. This is what Hannah wrote: If I could live in any house I would live in my house. My house makes me feel safe. My house has my cozy bed and my family. That made me feel so good! I love that she loves our house and her cozy bed and most especially our family.

HAPPY 7th BIRTHDAY HANNAH

Above: Hannah on her 1st birthday

Below: Hannah on her 7th birthday

Where does time go? It truly seems like yesterday that I was pregnant with her. We opted not to find out what we were having, but the whole time Jimmy and I both knew she was a he! Boy were we wrong! She is definitely the prissiest out of our brood. She picked out her birthday outfit a week before her party. Hannah loves tv, dance, and clothes. All she really asked for were clothes this year. So that's what we got her, plus a Taylor Swift cd. And man can she sing those songs! She's not really into sports...they make her "hot and tired". :0) But dance on the other hand, she will stand in front of the tv so she can watch herself and dance her heart out.

What I miss most about Hannah as a baby: Being new parents, Jimmy and I would fight over who was going to change her diapers. (That didn't last too long!) All of her firsts were our firsts too. Her baby laugh. We used to rock every single morning, just the two of us and watch tv together for a long time. That was our cuddle time. Her tiny little feet and sweet hands. Our song we used to sing to each other (and sometimes still do). I miss it all. I love the baby stage! Happy birthday sweet Hannah! I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always. As long as I'm living my baby you'll be.

Hannah's party

Hannah's seventh birthday party was yesterday afternoon. That just sounds crazy to me...seven!! Man, time flies. Anyway, this is her above getting ready to blow out her candles. Below is a picture of some of the girls at the party playing on our neighbors tree house (which has heat and air!).

First birthday cake

Saturday morning I had a cake do for a little girl's first birthday. They gave me the napkin in the picture to go by. I decided to do the number one like on the napkin, plus they wanted a little "smash cake" for the birthday girl. The blocks were a last minute idea. I used some of the cake left over from cutting out the one, that way they would have more cake.

Dance Recital

Saturday was the girls' recital so we are now done for the year (and for a couple of the girls possibly for a long time). Hannah, my oldest, is the one who love to dance. Rebecca has like it for the past few years, but would rather play sports. And Leah, well...let's just say we won't be signing her up again next year! :0) The recital went really well, a lot better than dress rehearsal. I was never nervous with Hannah or Rebecca when we had to go on stage and do our mommy and me dances, but with Leah.... After Friday's rehearsal, I wasn't sure what she was going to do on stage. On Friday she was doing her own little dance and running towards the front of the stage and dancing. I kept having to go get her and put her back on her spot. So I was a little concerned come Saturday. But she was soooo cute!!! No, she didn't dance like she was supposed to. Instead she sat down for most of the two dances. But while she was sitting she was moving her arms and feet like the rest of us were. A couple of times I would pick her up so she would stand, but right back down she would go. You could hear everyone in the audience laughing! Then, after both dances as we were walking off stage, she skipped and grinned a big ol' grin while waving to everyone. I'm so glad we have it all on video.

Spring Cleaning

I finally have a few minutes to blog, but nothing exciting to blog about. All I've been doing this week is spring cleaning. And the sad thing is, I only have two rooms done. It's hard to get into it really good b/c of my three year old constantly needing something or having to stop to make and clean up lunch and then having to leave to pick the kids up from school. Not to mention the fact that starting last night, I have somewhere to be everyday after school until around 8:00pm. Our dance recital is this weekend as is Hannah's birthday party, and we have practice tonight, tomorrow and Friday. And somewhere between cleaning, going to practice, homework, etc., I have to find time to get the stuff for the party and make her cake. I think I picked the wrong week to spring clean! But we all know that I don't always think very clearly! :0) Oh well, I'm off to clean some more. Until next time....

My weekend and a couple of cakes

Last week was rather busy for me. As a board member of the PTA, I took on the job of teacher appreciation week and I had three cakes all needing to be done on Friday. Not to mention Mother's Day quickly coming, and no gifts bought as of Saturday afternoon! Yes, I am still a bit of a procrastinator at times (but nothing like I use to be). But I was able to get it all done and on time. Aside from the scarey weather and Jimmy having to work, Mother's Day was pretty good. My parents went to church with us yesterday and then we all went out to eat. We went to the early service so when we went to eat there was nobody in there. My grandparents met us at the restaurant and it was the first time in a long time that we were all together to eat. It was nice and the kids had a great time. We went to Logan's and my kids were so excited to be able to put the peanut shells on the floor. Then when they were done they went over to the big window by the kitchen and watched them cook. They were having a good time with the kids making huge flames come up and a couple of times throwing french fries at the window towards them. They got a big kick out of that. After lunch we visited with Jimmy's grandma and mom for a while and then returned home and awaited the storm. I'm not really scared of storms, but when you hear over the radio that the weather service has indicated a rotation outside of Rich Square heading to Woodland, one gets a wee bit nervous. Since Jimmy was at work, we went over to Vickie's so the girls could play until the storm passed. At one point we had all five girls in the laundry room for about 15 minutes until it passed. That was really when I started getting nervous. But lucky for us, we just had heavy rain and strong wind. Right before we went over to Vickie's I had to explain the difference between a hurricaine and a tornado to Rebecca. She kept thinking a hurricaine was coming! During our conversation she asked what we would do if a tornado came. I told her where we would get and told her that we would use pillows and blankets to cover ourselves. So you could imagine her fear when she saw Vickie emerge from her bedroom with her arms full of pillows heading for the laundry room. She was terrified! Everyone else thought it was pretty cool, maybe a little concerned, but still cool. So that was my Mother's Day...praising the Lord for being able to be a mother, eating out with some of my favorite mothers, visiting other important mothers, and riding out storms.
Oh, cakes....one obviously is a John Deere cake that I was pretty pleased with and the other is a cake someone requested for her daughter that was going to be in a dance recital. She said she wanted a very girly ballerina cake, lots of pink and some purple and this is what I came up with. I was not as pleased with this cake. I did something different when icing this cake that I will never do again because it made the cake lopsided! I was disappointed, but she was really pleased. Oh well, I learn with every one. Practice, practice, practice!!

Spelling homework and our southern accents!

Last night Hannah and I were working on her spelling homework. The assignment was to write a sentence with some of her spelling words. The word we were at was "cricket". I said, "Ok Hannah, think of a sentence with the word cricket." Hannah said, "I can't do that." When I asked her why she said she didn't know which one they meant. I didn't understand what she was talking about so I said, "What do you mean you don't know which one? The word is cricket, how many different crickets are there?" She said, "There is two. One means an animal (I'm assuming she meant bug or insect) and the other means something is "cricket" (meaning crooked!!)." I thought I would die!! Just goes to show we deffinitely have southern accents!

This was the best fishing day ever!

That is what Hannah said at least fifty times Saturday! Jimmy got off work Saturday morning and off we went, boat in tow, fishing poles loaded (including their Barbie ones) and worms waiting for their destiny, heading to the Meherrin. We've been several time this year and have yet to catch a fish. Ok, Jimmy and I did catch two fish (if you include the one minnow) one morning when we went with Leah, but that doesn't really count. Jimmy has a special "hole" that has been occupied every time we've been this year, but Saturday it was all ours. As soon as we anchored the boat I said to the girls, "This is gonna be the day girls. We're gonna catch some fish today!" And boy was I right. Almost as soon as Jimmy cast his first line, he caught a fish and that was the start to the 35 white perch we caught. It started immediately with the first fish, "This is the best fishing day ever!" Rebecca and Leah didn't fish, they just watched and played in the boat. Hannah did fish, but unfortanately she didn't catch anything. But she obviously had a GREAT time, so we heard, over and over again. At one point, Jimmy and I just looked at each other and laughed, knowing it was coming. When we were done Jimmy and Hannah headed over to the firehouse to clean all the fish. I was going to pick up one of their cousins for the rest of the day and just knew Hannah would want to come with us, but cleaning fish with daddy was way more fun to her. Later in the evening the girls and I headed to RR for the night to visit Jimmy's parents and stay the night. Trudy painted the girls nails and said that in the little amount of time it took to paint Hannah's nails she said about five times, "This was the best fishing day ever!" This will definitely be a day that she will always remember. This is a picture of her in her fishing getup waiting to go clean the fish. Oh, I forgot to take my camera with me to the river, so I don't have any pictures. Sorry!!

15 Things I'm thankful for today...

1. My Salvation
2. My family
3. Good friends
4. Our health
5. It's Friday
6. Not having to use my heat or air lately (hurray for low electric bill!)
7. Having my niece here to play with Leah
8. Having a dust free kitchen, living room, and dining room (did that last night, maybe do the rest later today)
9. Having lunch with my sister, mom and dad
10. Getting a check from George next week (go George! I know that's not today, but I'm excited today)
11. My coffee (even though the little ones finished it off when I wasn't looking)
12. My back doesn't hurt as bad as it did this morning
13. Hannah taking orders before asking questions (doesn't always happen that way)
14. The girls get well cards to me
15. Hand-me-downs I get to go through today (thanks Shirley!)

Enough stressing

Ok...I've figured out why I'm stressing so bad about the price of these cakes. It's because every cake is different, some take more time, others are a lot easier, some require more detail, etc. So here are my new prices....it depends on the cake!! I can't charge a set price on all my cakes because not all of them are going to take as much time. Some of them may be a lot easier to decorate, versus others. And then sometimes I may have one that takes a lot of time and would need to charge more. So that is that, no more worries people...maybe one day I will get it together and know what in the world I am doing, but as for now...that is that! Thanks for stressing with me (for those of you who knew I was stressing!).

I need feedback

Ok guys, I know you will be honest and not scared to answer this question...it's about the price of these cakes. I need help! I've told several people that the price would be $1.50/person, but the more I think about it, the more outrageous that seems. When you put it into perspective, if someone needs a cake to serve 50 people and you charge $1.50/person that comes out to $75!! That's a lot! If I charge $1.25/slice that's $62.50. Does that still seem too ourtageous to you? Please be honest...thank you!!

Link

This is long, but I think it's right. I copied it from the address bar when I was on the site. Let me know if it doesn't work. When you get there you will have to click on "view all cake recipes". Then you will have to hit the right arrow button about 9 or 10 times unitl you see my cake. When you see it, click on it and then put your cursor over the stars to the right. "Rate Me!" should pop up and then you can click on how many stars you want to rate it. If that doesn't come up, then you will have to click on "view cake recipe" and then go to the stars to rate it. Sorry the directions are soooo long. And THANK YOU!!!! Here is the address http://family.go.com/contests/cake-recipes/?CMP=NL_Recipe&CMP=NL_Recipe?campaign=NLC-NL_Recipe&link=Section1Link7

Cake Contest

I received an email from a friend with a link to enter a cake into Family Fun's cake decorating contest. Well, I entered the Wizard of Oz cake last night. They have got some really cool cakes up there so I know the chances of winning are not very high at all. And especially since the picture I uploaded was cut off some, so the rainbow doesn't even show up in the picture. The rainbow really makes the cake, so I'm pretty bummed about that. Oh well....the grand prize is a $500 gift card to Williams-Sonoma. I'm sure I could find plenty of things I could spend $500 on from there! There are over 600 cakes entered in this. Wish me luck!! I keep voting for myself...is that wrong??? Well, my mom voted too! :0) Oh, and my sister...I made them both.