Heaven in Chocolate Cake form

Okay, so I'm pretty proud of myself because I came up with this all by my lonesome. :D And it actually turned out FABULOUS! Okay, so you start out with a devil's food cake mix, then add most of a can of pie filling (I used strawberry, chocolate and strawberry are just fantastic together) keep a little in reserve for garnishing. Anyway, so you cook the cake (I had to add an extra ten minutes to the baking timebut I don't know if that's becauseof the pie filling or my oven so I'd start out follwing the cook time on the box, then checking it.) For icing I used a stick of butter, softened and 2 cups of powedered suger. Mix it all together until creamy, then add a little vanilla flavoring. Sorry, I kind of just threw some in there so I'm not sure how much it was, probably 2 or 3 teaspoons. once your cakes are cooled (you can see in the picture, my cakes were still a little warm so the frosting melted. lol!) iceyour cake, and put the rest of your fruit on top to look pretty and viola'! A moist, fabulous, chocolate bit of heaven. Enjoy!!

Decorating Kari and Jillian's room part 1: Curtains

First I have to put up a pic of Kari for family. :D

Okay, now that that's out of the way, we have a unique problem up here in AK. It's sunny ALL DAY during the summer and dark ALL DAY during the winter. So I'd made a set of drapes last summer and I'd sewn the blackout liner to it, it just seemed easier, I wouldn't need a double bar rod, ect. WELL, that's all good and fine during the summer, but in the winter it makes her room pitch black all the time. And I like to take advantage of whatever natural light I can SO, This is my solution. Super simple and easy, not to mention cute!! Take your fabric (I used gingham taffeta) cut to size leaving a little extra around the edges for your hems. Hem all edges and use drapery clips! That way, when it's summer, you can just add your blackout liner to the clip. No more sewing, super easy. There's a picture of one side with the liner, and the other without. The difference is pretty easy to see. I've still got to figure out what I want to do on the top but I'm pretty pleased!!!

okay for some reason the video isn't working, but it IS on my facebook page. I'll keep working on getting this working but in the meantime, ifyou don't have facebook, I'll e-mail it to you. Just let me know.

We've been having car "issues" so we haven't made it to either the grocery store, OR the craft store so I haven't been able to pick up stuff for my experiments *mad scientist laugh* BUT my little cutie just decided a couple days ago that she's FINALLY interested in walking. Well it took her long enough.

And here's my little helper "putting away dishes" in the kitchen. :D

And this is her favorite "perch" lately. Just hanging out on the stairs.

Resolution

So it's a new year. Time for New Year's resolutions. Well, I decided I'm going to resolve to do something I might actually do. lol! If you know me at all, you know I stick to things that work for me. I have a "regular" that I get at every restraunt I frequent, I cook things that are easy and convenient, and I stick to bows and sewing as far as crafty stuff goes. It's pretty boring really, but THIS year, I've decided that instead of saying I want to get back to my size 6 once the new baby is here (which I do), or read all of the standardized works (which I want to do), or only eat out for date nights once a week (which probably won't happen) I'm going to resolve to try new things. New recipes, new crafts, new meals, ect. You get the idea. I'm going to get out of my comfort zone and be adventurous! No jumping out of planes though, one baby step at a time people. And, I want to take you all along for the ride! I will try my darndest to try something new at least once a week, and then blog about it. I'll even take pictures. Doesn't that sound like fun? I'm sure we'll have some successes, and some total disastors but hey, that's life. Anyway, I already started! Did you know that if you go to olivegarden.com you can get their recipes?? I didn't (thank you Tyler for this little tidbit of information) so we tried Chicken Giardino. I didn't have all the ingredients (i.e. the exact veggies, or the white wine) so I did a few substatutions. For the sauce I would recommend doubling it and adding a whipping cream if you don't use the wine. It smelled amazing! And tasted pretty good too! Here's a pic! I'm enjoying this resolution!

And of course, I can't help but put a picture of my adorable daughter! ;)

2010!!

My current favorites:








And oh yeah, I'm 31 weeks along. Only 9 more to go!!