yummy valentine cake

This week we made some yummy cake that I always liked as a kid. And I pretty much ate the whole thing. yikes. I thought I would share the recipe though since it is kind of a valentine looking cake!




Red Earth Cake

½ C Crisco
1 ¼ C sugar
1 egg
1 Tbs. cocoa
1 tsp. red food color
2 Tbs. strong coffee

2 C flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1 C buttermilk

1 tsp. vanilla

Cream Crisco, sugar & egg. Mix together in a cup the cocoa, food coloring and coffee.
Then add to the sugar mixture.
Alternate mixing the flour and buttermilk.
Add the salt to the flour and the soda to the last part of the buttermilk.

Bake at 350 35 to 40 min. in a 9 x 13 pan that has been sprayed and floured.


Discovery Icing

1 ½ C sugar (granulated not powdered)
2 egg whites
1/3 C boiling water
¼ tsp. cream of tarter
¼ tsp. salt
2 Tbs. white Karo
1 tsp. vanilla
½ tsp. almond

Boil water in a double boiler.  In the top pan/bowl we used a whisk attachment for
a hand mixer and beat the sugar, egg whites, water, cream of tarter, salt and Karo
for 5 min.  Then add the vanilla and almond extracts and beat 5 more min. with
the water just simmering.  You should probably check the water level between the
times to beat it.

birthday week

the kids actual birthday was sunday the 15th. it was pretty much just a normal day since it was on sunday. after church we opened presents and had lunch with mimi and papa. then some friends of ours came over that evening...more presents and more eating. these kids are spoiled rotten.

below is a picture of sawyers favorite babies that she got for christmas and bday. she loves them. they sleep with her (and have a particular place) and she always wants to play babies now. the kids had a tea party at school for their birthday where they got to pick the menu. so cute. the rest of the pictures are just from our week playing with friends. enjoying all of the crazy warm weather we have had!! zoned out after playing outside...

birthday party

we had the kids fourth birthday party this weekend (their birthday is the 15th). we did it at church and rented a bouncy slide. i let the kids pick the theme and they picked superheros and princess. i looked around on etsy for an invitation that had that combined theme and didn't really find anything that i liked. so i emailed my friend ashley to see if she could create something that had both. she did an awesome job. and was so quick and it was so easy. if you are looking for a party pack check her out: http://snowbirddesign.blogspot.com/



here are the tables. i just found a bunch of different ideas on pinterest and combined it all. i could not have done it without my mom and chrys. my mom made all of the awesome capes that the boys took home as party favors. they were a huge hit. and they both helped me to assemble all the decor. it was all pretty cheap to do, just took a lot of time.
  we had a great turnout and it was a great party. i am so thankful for all of our sweet friends that came and helped us celebrate their birthday. we are so blessed that they have such great friends!

new york

my feet and legs are sore and tired, i have piles of laundry to do, grocery shopping, work to catch up on and party planning to take care of. back to reality. we had a great vacation though. we saw most of the sites, relaxed, ate good food and spent time with jen. everything we had wanted from the vacation. we did everything much slower though than planned. the traveling before the trip killed my back and belly, and anytime we walked too fast or went up stairs I had contractions. fun. i have always wanted to see new york at christmas. and we kinda ended up catching the best of both worlds. the tree was still up but we missed all the crowds!! we really got lucky most of the trip on not waiting.

sights:
the first day we were there we walked along the east side of central park and through it some. we went in the plaza hotel since it was in one of my most favorite movies. we went to times square. and saw wicked. and we saw the tree before they started taking it down.

and went to the top of rockefeller. we saw the 9/11 memorial. and took a ferry ride. that we almost missed.

other than that we got one amazing foot massage that i wish i could repeat every day and ate a lot of yummy food. carnegie deli, max brenners, two little red hens, eileens, smac, buddha bbeeq, nicks and gotham pizza.

4 year old pictures

this saturday was sunny and almost 80 so i decided to take the kids out for their 4 year pics since their birthday is this month. i figured we probably won't have another day like that for a while! i also needed pictures for their valentines and my business valentine mini post.

you would think from the pictures that they behaved well and were easy. ha! mason pulled down his pants and started peeing while i was taking them. he tooted multiple times (once in the picture below on the right), much to sawyers dislike. and pretty much did the opposite of what i asked at all times. but we still got a few :) outtakes: