Spring Creative Memories Retreat 2012

I spent the weekend in Hickory, NC hosting my spring retreat for my Creative Memories customers and had a blast!  I spent a good amount of time in the kitchen as always, but just about finished a book for my mother-in-law...that I 'gave' her for Christmas...yes, I'm behind...lol.

I will be sharing a couple of recipes that I used this weekend that were REALLY good that I found on pinterest...YUMMO!  The girls seat favors turned out super cute as well!  Missed some of my regulars this go around...LL you aren't allowed to miss ANY more crops....but have a few new faces, and stories to tell is always fun!    Here area few random pics from the weekend! 

Thursday Thoughts

Coming off a long weekend at the campground with RC and my sister and into a week of spring break with 6 kids everyday, you'd think I'd be crazy.  Well I am, but kind of in a good way.  Before I get to that...let me share some of my favorite pictures from the beach.

Ok, much better...Now back to my story.  This is my last spring break with my kiddos.  And it's really kinda sad.  I enjoy seeing the everyday stuff with the kids.  Of course I enjoy the moments like birthdays, Christmas, etc, but I enjoy the kids just being themselves and playing, hanging out with their friends and the everyday life.  I'll miss that the most.  Along with the snuggles and hugs and kisses good morning and goodbye.  Okay, so I'll miss a lot of things.  I am very much looking forward to the next chapter in my life, being a wife to Randy, part time Nannie to our niece, de-cluttering two houses and making the Lake Wylie house into our home.  This week I've been reminded how much fun my job can be.  No shuttling kids around to school and back or after school pickup.  No stressful schedules or demands.  Just hanging out.  Going to the park.  Having fun in the yard.  Snack in the grass under the tree.  The things I'll miss.  Here's a couple collages of cute pics of the kids hanging out.  Just being kids.  No game boys or Angry Birds or whatever the latest craze is...just having fun.  I am digging the new Picasa editing software by the way...I played with a few options in the collages...totally love the soft edges and the 1960's filter too...very cool!

Life around here is pretty busy.  Days begin at 530am and end around 10pm.  There is much to be done to prepare for the move.  So much clutter.  So little time.  But I am blessed to be in the place I'm in.  This time last year so many things in my life where waaaaay different.  And I wouldn't go back.  Not even for a second.  God has guided me in a totally different path than I ever thought I would be.  I am embracing the future, holding onto the present and enjoying the time I have with my sweet babies.  It will be time for the really hard stuff soon...I'll just have to deal with that later.  When I have to.  Until then, I'm going to love on them, spoil them when I can and snuggle them as much as they will sit still for. 

Blessings to all who have crossed this blog...May you feels God's peace and love in your life.

Stephanie

Lessons in Cooking

Before I got married, I often only cooked, like really cooked, once a week for myself.  I'd make lunch for whichever kids were with me that day, but not really 'cooking' more like chicken nuggets, mac n cheese, pb and j, you get the idea.

Well now that I'm not the only one in the house, I do like to prepare a meal for my husband to come home to.  Which means I'm doing a lot of cooking.  Like everyday cooking.  Seriously.  Anyhoo, it's been fun pulling some recipes out of my arsenal of the years of watching my mom cook and learning bits and pieces about making biscuits or icebox coconut cake or whatever she was making that night.

With the inclusion of Pinterest in my life, new recipes are being tried quite often and most of them are quite successful.  RC isn't picky, thank goodness.  Just leave out celery, pickle relish, lima beans and some other oddities and he's good to go.  He does love red velvet cake.  And I had never made one before.  Ever.  2 bottles of red food coloring?  Are you serious?  I worked my way into homemade by using a box mix to make red velvet whoopie pies for RC to take to work.  The cream cheese frosting was really good...I didn't care for the cake part at all.  I forgot to reduce the liquid to make a true whoopie pie, so I had to bake them in a jelly roll pan and cut them...can you say crumbs EVERYWHERE?  I even had enough crumbs to make some cake balls...eh...whatever!

RC's birthday was a week later and I decided to give the homemade cake a try.  I used Bakerella's Red Velvet Cake recipe as well as her icing recipe too.  I don't know who bakerella is, but she's pretty popular on pinterest...so I decided to give it a go.  Lemme just tell you.  Red food coloring, two whole bottles of it, is something quite dangerous.  Don't mistake the lock/unlock button for the speed button on the stand mixer.  It won't be pretty.  Here's the batter...

Easy enough, right?  Pour into pans and bake until done...check and check

Remove from pans and cool on rack. Um yeah, not so much...Every single one stuck to the pan...like REALLY stuck.  One would think that with a cup of oil and really well sprayed pans, the cake would just pop out.  One would be wrong in this assumption!

The picture doesn't do the mess justice, but oh my...what a hot mess.  I pieced together what I could, determined to salvage the cakes and proceeded to the icing.  Butter, cream cheese, vanilla and confectioner's sugar.  Not too intimidating and very good.  One recipe should have been enough, but because I had to repair layers, and basically use the frosting as glue...here is what one recipe got me.

So, I went back to the mixing bowl and made another batch.  That's 12 cups of sugar, 2 blocks of cream cheese and 4 sticks of butter in total....Yikes!  But here is the finished product complete with candles for RC's 42 birthday...and I must say homemade red velvet is MUCH better.

Here's the guts...don't look too closely or you can see the obvious repair points.

I gave RC the choice of what he wanted to eat that night and he chose cubed steak, rice and gravy...so here's the plate of that...Paula Deen, before her realization that cooking and eating bad foods is actually bad for you, geez who would've thunk it, would've been proud...it was delicious!  And I added a pic of the birthday boy blowing out his candles...Thank goodness the cake was good!

So in my search on Pinterest I came across some cute St Patrick's Day cupcakes, using none other that Bakerella's (told you she was popular) recipe and swapping out two bottles of red for one bottle of green.  So I made some more treats to send with RC to work and a container of mini cupcakes for the kids for snack today.  That's some seriously green batter, folks...whew!

I am enjoying my rekindled love of cooking, the scales however does not agree with me.  So I'm now in the search for some more summer clothes wearing friendly recipe to incorporate into our routine.  We'll see how that goes over.  Have a great weekend everyone!

Belated Birthday

I realized that I never posted pictures from the celebration for Randy's birthday this year...We got together at Rey Azteca in Lake Wylie to eat supper together with friends and family from NC and SC! It was a great time! Love these folks and of course my sweet hubby!

Marriage Retreat, March Madness and More!

I really cannot believe it is March 13th.  Really?  Seriously? I have been married for eleven weeks already.  How did that happen?  Even though we had a relatively low key wedding and reception that didn't take months and months to plan and recuperate from...it really feels like we JUST got married!  We just spent the weekend at a marriage retreat with 19 other couples from my home church...it was a blessing to get away for a weekend to Bonclarken Conference Center in Flat Rock, NC to spend time with other couples some married for more than 30 years and some still dating or engaged!  We listened to a video series by Mark Gungor that was entertaining, yet informative.  I wouldn't say I agree 100% with everything he said, but even those points we discussed with the group and weighed in our opinions with each other.  It was a wonderful weekend full of smiles, laughs and most importantly, time away with my husband!

All of the wonderful couples at the marriage retreat!

For those who aren't aware, I am a HUGE UNC Tarheel fan.  Well, if you caught the ACC tourney over the weekend, you know it didn't end the way I wanted it to.  Now onto the NCAA tourney and maybe a chance at redemption.  The only thing that made it bearable was that Duke lost before us and we did manage to hang on til the last shot, though giving the game to the better team for that game.  Florida State creamed us during regular season and deserved the win both times.  I still don't have to like it.  March Madness also siginifies the end of my favorite sports season, college basketball...hopefully I can hold on 'til football season, because you won't see me watching any boredomball, oh I meant baseball.  Yuck!

My daycare kids are growing like weeds and time is flying by WAY too quickly for me as I near the end of this chapter of my life.  I can't hardly imagine my life without daily care of these precious babies, but I know God's plan for me will be laid out in the weeks, months and maybe year ahead...and for that I am excited, nervous, sad, overwhelmed and overall thankful that I was able to be a part of so many lives over the past 16 years. 

I have some prayer requests that are heavy on my heart today and I am lifting them up to God, praying for wisdom, guidance and discernment.  It's "funny" how you can be bebopping (yes, that's a word) along and realize that some things around you aren't what they seem.  Makes you wonder what else you've missed along the way either through being deceived or just plain clueless, but nonetheless I am trusting God to help me sort it all out. 

I am in love with the song, Never Once, by Matt Redman.  It speaks into my heart and reminds me just how far I've come through God's love, grace and mercy in my life.  It hasn't always been easy, nor will it always be.  But His unmistakeable guidance and evident hand in my life just fills me to overwhelmingly overflowing with thankfulness.  I can't hardly process how much my life has changed from this time last year.  Looking back at this post from March 2011 is a reminder like no other...how BIG our God is.  Even though I took that step in obedience to what I felt the Lord was leading me to do.  I hated, yes hated ~ even though that's an ugly word,  every single second of online dating.  I met a few nice people, but the overall experience was one I could've done without.  However it was one of the steps in the process that led to RC and I being where we are today, and I will FOREVER be grateful for that!  I now know what it really feels like to see God work in and through the many trials of your life to bring about blessings and reveal HIS plan.  Not until I completely surrendered my life did I really begin to see God's direction...not to say I haven't felt guided in the past, but to really be to a point in my life where I said, Lord I cannot do this alone...and I trust YOU to show me the path. The words in "Never Once" ring true now so near and dear to my heart and I hope maybe one of you will be touched as well.  My favorite lines are the chorus that say "Never once did we ever walk alone, never once did You leave us on our own, You are faithful, God, You are faithful" It seems so simple, yet is so very true...God will NEVER leave or forsake us...He tells us so in Hebrews 13:6...And when we stand on the mountaintop and look just how far we've come (verse one) it's hard not to be utterly amazed at what God can and will do in and through you if you will focus your eyes on Him.  Whew...I'm on a tangent here, however...I am so blessed and can't contain my excitement for all that God is doing in my life...I want to shout it from the rooftops, but I'll settle for my blog for now - so if you are still reading...bless you! :)

I am off to spend some time with my sweet RC who is sitting and strumming the guitar as I type...Blessings to all who have passed by here! 

Stephanie

Lego Party for Peyton

Peyton turned 7 this year...hard to believe it's been that long since he was that chubby newborn!  He picked a Lego theme and my sister, with her new found obsession with Pinterest, helped Peyton's parents throw a super cute party!!! Here are some of the ideas she used and some she came up with!  Enjoy!

Duplo blocks in canister

Table setup for party

Cupcake liner in punch cups filled with goldfish crackers

Rice Krispie treats on a stick with one side coated with chocolate!

Fun way to serve cheese balls

Lego cake with 13x9 pan cake and 6 cupcakes

White chocolate dipped Oreos on a stick

Lego cupcake tower

Cupcakes with real Lego decorations

Lego colored tissue paper in a vase

Cupcake tower

Cupcakes displayed on cake pedestal made from dollar store plate and candlestick...too cute!

Oreos on stick displayed in tin bucket with foam and tissue paper

Rice Krispie squares in tin bucket with foam and tissue paper

Another dollar store plate and candlestick display

Closeup of Lego cupcakes

Party favors - Candy building blocks in plastic baggies - super cute!

Peanutty Chocolate Banana Bread

My first contribution to Pinterest...this bread is very yummy, not too heavy or sweet and a great breakfast bread or snack!  I found this recipe in an old Pampered Chef cookbook from way back and I used bananas that I had previously sealed with the Food Saver and frozen/thawed out and they worked perfectly!  (great way to salvage bananas that have gotten too ripe, but you don't have time to cook anything with them right away)

2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 medium)
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup peanut butter
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 egg
1 cup milk chocolate morsels, divided
1/3 cup peanuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray bottom only of of loaf pan with nonstick spray.  Combine flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.  Add bananas, milk, peanut butter, oil and egg; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened.  Stir in 3/4 cup of the milk chocolate morsels.  Spoon batter into pan.  Coarsely chop peanut and sprinkle peanuts and remaining 1/4 cup milk chocolate morsels evenly over batter.  Bake 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool in pan 10 minutes.  Loosen sides of loaf from pan and remove to cooling rack to cool completely.  Cut into slices with bread knife for best results.