Happy Birthday to You

Happy Birthday to my husband...a great guy...a guy who is passionate about God, family and his country.  I'm a blessed woman to be his wife. 

The children and I had so much fun getting ready for Dave's birthday celebration.  We cleaned up the house, wrapped presents, fixed potato salad (can you believe I've never made it before????) and prepared the rest of dinner.  The best part about planning this celebration was making the cupcakes with my daughter.  (directions below)

This idea comes from "Cupcake, Cookies & Pie, Oh, My!" Cookbook, page 156.  To make these "Soda Shop" cupcakes here is what to do:
*Spoon 3/4 vanilla frosting into small bowl and freeze 30 minutes
*Divide remaining vanilla frosting among 3 microwaveable bowls. Tint one bowl pink with red food coloring, tint one bowl chocolate with cocoa powder, leave third bowl white.
*Working with one color of frosting, microwave the frosting - 10 - 15 seconds.  Holding a cupcake by the liner (we used silver), dip into the melted frosting, allowing excess to drip back into the bowl.  Transfer to cookie sheet.  While frosting is still wet, top the cupcake with some sprinkles or decorating sugar.  Repeat with 4 more cupcakes.  Repeat the process with 5 cupcakes for each color frosting. 
*Remove the vanilla frosting from the freezer and use a small spoon to shape the frozen frosting into balls.  Place a scoop of frosting on top of each cupcake, pressing down slightly to secure. 
*For chocolate malt, dust top of each cupcake with cocoa powder, for strawberry soda add sprinkles, and for vanilla creams add the chocolate sprinkles.
*Cut bendy straw to shorten both ends - insert.
*Color sytrofoam cups with red stripes.
*Place cupcakes inside cup.  These will be top heavy so if transporting wait till you arrive to assemble... My older son thought that filling the cups with candies would help them not be so top-heavy.

My daughter and I have made many a cupcake and these were by far my favorite to assemble...happy cupcaking!

Happy Easter!

I have fond memories of my mother and I going for Easter dinner at a Chinese restaurant....yep every Easter.  The past few Easters have come and gone without much "flare" or consideration for Easter.  BUT something has changed in my heart and the best way to describe it is in the words of a song...."Amazing grace how can it be that you my King would die for me..."  Over the past few years our King, mighty and strong, has become my fortress, my strong tower, my deliverer, my redeemer, my everything...."I'm alive today because He died for me"...so this Easter I have joy - and lots of it!  The joy has come on slowly as the Lord has had to "create in me a clean heart" and remove from my heart the callousness around it and has filled it with the awe knowledge of Him. 

He loves to feed chickens! 

One of our neighbors found out that my children have never colored eggs before (I know shame on me)...and she blessed us with two dozen hard boiled eggs and the egg coloring box.  It was so much fun to color eggs with the children - I will look forward to this being a tradition from now on.  I think that I will hide them outside in the morning for a festive Easter egg hunt. 

We are spending Easter in our little mountain home enjoying an Easter message from my husband and an Easter meal complete with a ham from one of the hogs we raised.  My daughter and I are waiting for the cupcakes to cool so we can decorate them.  We will be taking marshmallows, cutting them on the diagonal, dipping the sticky side into colored sugar and then arranging them onto the cupcakes to make flowers...picture to come later. 

My husband came up with an idea to make Easter fun and different - we are going to play lots of different games with the winners receiving strange prizes...that I can not divulge here as one of them might read it and know our plan...teee-heee!

I also wanted to share this easy to make "pie" - it has become one of my favorite special dishes to make.  It isn't has "pretty" as I would have liked it to be...but I know just by the smell it will be delicious.

Candied Sweet Potato Pie - Oh, Yum

 1 single pie crust - pre-baked.
1/4 cup butter
2 lbs sweet potatoes or yams (yams make it more colorful)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup pecan halves
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

1.  Peel and slice either sweet potatoes or yams 1/4 inch thick and set aside.
2. Melt butter add sweet potatoes and stir to coat in butter. Cook one minute over medium heat.
3. Sprinkle with sugar, lift and fold gently to coat potatoes in sugar. Cook 5-8 minutes more to caramelize. Stir in pecans and nutmeg (could also add lemon peel if wanted for a twist). Turn off heat and cool.
4. Carefully layer potatoes in pre-baked pie crust. Bake 15 - 20 minuets in a 425 oven. 
5. Cool and brush with left over syrup from skillet.
6. Can be served with whipped cream if desired.

Goes great with ham - Enjoy!
Adapted from "Better Homes and Gardens"  October 2011

Oh, Happy Day...Nine is Fine...

What a fun young man this guy is. I love celebrating things with him...especially his birthday! He is a wonderful young man whose love of God's word is amazing. He has a mighty passion for animals and people in need. He has a gentle temperament. I appreciate that he is diligent and trustworthy in all that is required of him. He loves school...which makes teaching him a delight. We love you young man....Happy Birthday to you!

His morning started EARLY...opening presents....which he had to find one on a treasure hunt that ended in the dryer..."buried treasure" we said. We played an insane amount of video games (I'm still recovering), ate a lot of junk food and enjoyed just hanging out.

For breakfast he requested eggs, bacon and english muffins. For lunch he wanted cereal and soda (I skipped lunch especially as the soda was the blue kind - so gross). For dinner he was happy with lasagna, green beans (which he informed me he didn't really "order"), applesauce and keifer rolls....and for dessert we made Banana Split Pie - oh, yum....the night ended in a movie....it was a good day!

If you would like the recipe for either the Keifer Rolls or the Banana Split Pie let me know.

Thank you for stopping by.

Eleven is Heaven

Our daughter turned eleven on February 9th. I think eleven is a very important age...it seems this is when a child goes from just that a child into a young man or woman....this is the age that will define their "youth". She is full full full of life. She has a huge amount of energy, and is passionate about baking, shooting, crafting, sewing - basically anything that is creative and challenging (well not school so much). She loves to try new and thrilling things...things I would never try...like the scariest roller coaster at the theme park last year.

Her father and I look forward to seeing how the Lord will work out His will in her life.
We are so thankful for the time we have with this little burst of energy...she makes our life full and very colorful!

She loves it that her birthday is in the same month with Valentine's Day because of all the heart themed items...like the pizza.

Her day ended with playing "Barbie" with her dad. Her dad has such a funny personality and we were all in stiches because of the silly comments he was making...so funny!