Amazing Grace with the EVMCO

If you've been debating the upcoming East Valley Mormon Choral Organization's patriotic concert, now is the time to get your tickets.  Last night, all remaining tickets were reduced in price.  Tickets were $15-35, but are now $10-25 ... that's a nice savings!  They've never done anything like this before!  We want community members to come & feel uplifted by the power of music.  **This is the LAST patriotic concert that the EVMCO will be performing for a number of years, so please don't miss-out on this opportunity.

Come see Collin Raye perform with the EVMCO!

Come see an all-volunteer, full symphony performing on a professional level!

Come hear the sweet children (starting at age 4) sing with voices like bells!

And the adult choir is outstanding!!

I promise that you will not leave this concert feeling uplifted and proud to be an American!!

I posted this on my previous post, but HERE is a video promo for the concert.

Just to get you excited, we will be performing this song ... bagpipes & all!

I hope that's it's OK to share this ... it is a comment that was left on my blog about a year ago after our May 2010 patriotic concert:

"Such an amazing concert! I was tearing up with the first song. I'm super jealous you played with William Joseph!! His violinist was also phenomenal! I was reminded how much I love music and how much I wish I would have continued practicing these last 10 years, so maybe I could even think to try out for an orchestra like that :) I'm curious what was your favorite piece you got to play? I LOVED them all. Your little Penguin was adorable. I watched her soldier in and sing her little heart out :) Congrats and thanks for telling me about it."

After I performed in CA with our sister group, the OCMCO, one member of the audience started talking to me outside of the concert hall.  He shared with me how impressed he was by the concert, how he was considering driving all the way to Salt Lake City (from Orange County, CA) to see the concert performed again, and he even compared us to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. 

Hope to see you next Saturday, May 21 at one of our performances ... 5:00 or 8:00.  Tickets can be purchased online HERE.

Missing in Action ...

I know ... I know ... I've totally been MIA ... but I have lots of good excuses.  While I was in CA having a good time with my sister and performing with the OCMCO, I got a phone call letting me know that we have to move-out of our rental house.  It's a long, boring story, but it is what it is, so as soon as I got back, we started house hunting like mad people ... like 12+ hours a day between looking online and actually going out to tour homes.  If we can find something in the next few days, we have time to close and move-in instead of going to another rental.  We've also been tossing around the idea of renting again & building a custom home, but finding a lot to build on and the number of unknowns are somewhat daunting.  We'll see.

In other news, the EVMCO/OCMCO Salt Lake City concert sold-out around 4000 seats in less than 30 minutes!!  That was very exciting but at the same time very frustrating for all the people who got zero tickets.  And the word on the street is that the box office over-sold because they expect a certain number of no-shows but with all the people traveling from out-of-state and even some from out-of-country, we don't anticipate a lot of no-shows.  The directors of our organizations are now working on additional concerts in the Salt Lake City area.

Here is a preview of our upcoming May21st concert in Mesa, Arizona with country super-star Collin Raye ... tickets are on-sale now!!  You can not afford to miss this event!!

I've done zip-nada-zero-zilch baking the last few weeks ... and not much cooking either.  We usually stop for tacos or something around 8:30 at night after we are fried from house hunting.  I'm going to have lots of catching-up to do with my foodie groups.

Hope you are all enjoying a more calm & normal weekend than me!!  Happy Mother's Day!!

Calling all California Friends!!

This past weekend, we checked-out one more home.  Another no.  The exterior/style of the home was beautiful, but the house was a dump!  The owner is a realtor ... they should know better than to show a home in that condition!!!  But it's obvious they haven't cared for their home and as a result it needs new flooring, new paint everywhere, etc, etc, etc.  This afternoon we are going to see another home.  It already has an offer, but there's something in the contract that allows the owner and bank to consider and accept better offers.  Weird, but that's the market here.  And ... we'll see if we even like the home. *sigh*

This coming weekend, I should be having a little more fun!  (And some extreme pain from holding my violin up for long stretches of time, but mostly totally enjoying myself!)  I was invited to travel to Orange County, California to perform with the OCMCO Symphony.  I'm way excited!!  I will be attending their dress rehearsal Friday night and then performing two concerts with them on Saturday.  SO ... if you live in or close to Orange County, come see me play!!  We will be performing Brett Stewart's oratorio, Messiah in America, with four top-notch soloists from around the country.  The children will be singing their songs and parts of the program and pianist Brandon Stewart & the symphony will perform Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 (3rd movement).  I'm SUPER excited to play a classical piece!!  I worked on it for 3 hours yesterday & I still have a ways to go ... you better come see me!  I recently performed Messiah in America in Mesa, Arizona and it has received amazing reviews.  I will also be performing this same oratorio in Salt Lake City, UT in about a month.  If you live in CA, please get your tickets HERE or HERE for THIS WEEKEND's performance!!  It would be tons of fun to have some friends & followers in the audience!!

Young Women Mother-Daughter Activity + Cupcakes

Our annual mother-daughter activity was held in my backyard.  The girls & moms played get-to-know-you games, cooperation games, and enjoyed each other's company.  Everyone seemed to have a great time!  We just put large tables & chairs in my grass with yellow roses as our centerpieces.  Hubby hung lights & lanterns for us ... when the lights go up, it makes me want to have a backyard party every single night just so I can sit out under the lights!  One of the YW leaders is a professional photographer, so we had a fun photo booth ... if she posts photos online, I'll give you a link to check-out.

I was in charge of food, so I decided to do mini-cupcakes.  I ended up doing four flavors and actually one was not really a cupcake, but I wanted to make sure I had something that appealed to everyone.

I have a favorite (& pretty easy) chocolate cupcake recipe that I top with a bittersweet chocolate-sour cream frosting.  This is always a hit, but I think it got overlooked with all the other fun & different flavors.

The other three flavors I made were all new recipes so the girls & moms were my guinea pigs for the night.  Everyone absolutely loved all the cupcakes, asked for recipes, told me I should be on Cupcake Wars (which I had never heard of before that night), etc.  Sometimes we take a chance on a new recipe and it's a flop, but I think these three were winners ....

First up ... I wanted something fruity ... Blueberry Muffins topped with fresh lemon curd and a little homemade whipped cream.  This was a favorite cupcake of LOTS of people, which kinda surprised me.  Some feedback I got was that without the lemon curd, this cupcake would've been too much like a muffin & that the fresh-homemade lemon curd (courtesy of my mama!) totally made the cupcake.

Second up was Peanut Butter & Jelly!!  I don't think I would have normally tried this recipe.  PB is just OK for me, but the recipe looked fairly simple and I thought this would be something that was different from the chocolate and blueberry that I had already made.  I also thought it might appeal to the young girls.  Again, everyone loved them.  It totally tasted like PB & J sandwiches, only better!

My final cupcake flavor, that wasn't really a cupcake, was Oreo cheesecake.  This was another flavor that people kept saying was their favorite.

So...there ya go.  The polka-dot cupcake liners were purchased at Michaels.  If I remember correctly, they sold mini & regular size liners with that design ... they also had hot pink which I didn't photograph.  For the whipped cream, I used cake decorating tip 1M, but a 2D will turn-out similar.

Recipes for blueberry, PB & J, and Oreo cheesecake are from our good friend, Martha Stewart!  I can only find one of the three recipes online, so if you'd like to give the PB & J cupcakes a whirl, go HERE!  They'd be very popular at a child's birthday party!!

Alice Medrich's Chocolate Chip Cookies & Other Happenings

Life is just insane sometimes.   We had our dinner party a couple weeks ago & the weather cooperated beautifully.  No rain until after midnight that night.  It was great getting to know people from church that I might not usually work with or consider my "buds", but after spending some time with these people and having them in my home, we saw how interesting and fun it is to break out of your regular circle.  Some people came that I wasn't even sure if I knew what they looked like or who they were and now I'd definitely consider having them over for dinner again.

Two days after our dinner party, the Young Women presidency in our ward was released and a new presidency was called.  I was one of the few lucky ones that got to stay in YW with all the changes, so I am still a Laurel advisor.  But we realized at church that Sunday that we were supposed to be having a special mother-daughter activity 2 days later and there was no location reserved, no food planned, no decorations bought, etc.  Because I had just had a dinner party in my backyard and they were looking for an outdoor location for the get-together, I volunteered my yard & house.  More details for come....

As for my personal life, I'm consumed by rental-house problems ... again.  I tell ya ... renting has not been a good/fun experience for us.  But this most recent experience has kinda forced us to start considering buying a house.  We spent about 12 hours this weekend house-hunting.  We almost put an offer on a house.  We got pre-approved, had the offer all written up, but at the last minute decided to not go through with it.  The house was amazing.  The current owners are probably $1mill in debt on it & they are trying to short-sale the home.  They bought a home (probably when the market was high) and then gutted it.  The owner is a professional interior designer, so it was absolutely beautiful ... there wasn't one paint color or anything that I'd change and we even considered buying some of the furniture that she had in the home.  The yard was very family friendly, too ... a sports court (great spot to ride bikes in the backyard), sand & large swingset, firepit & gas fireplace, outdoor kitchen/built in BBQ, and all this was on about 3/4 of an acre.  It seemed to be everything we were looking for, but I just didn't love the floor plan or feel like it was as functional as I'd like for our family's needs.   There is another house we are considering, but it needs to be gutted ... not sure if it's had any updates or changes in nearly 30 years ... and we're still shopping around.

Last night we took our whole Young Women group (all the girls 12-18 years old who attend church with me) to see the Easter Pageant.  I snuck my hubby & kids in with the group cause if they didn't go last night, we wouldn't have been able to attend this year.  After saying no to putting an offer on the house, I needed to do something a little more fun, so I decided to bake some cookies to take & share with our young women group.  I have my favorite chocolate-chip cookie recipe, but I was in the mood to try Alice Medrich's "My Chocolate Chip Cookies" from her new cookie cookbook.  The recipe said I'd get about 60 cookies from one batch ... I must've made big cookies cause I got about 1/2 that many.  Realizing that we'd run out of treats very quickly with only 30 cookies, we whipped up a baking sheet of brownies.  Alice's recipe was pretty quick and easy & it's always nice to have a recipe that you don't have to shop or plan ahead for.  I thought her cookies were a little on the chewy side (which isn't necessarily a bad thing), but the leftovers (I kept a few cookies at home for us to munch on today) have stayed much more fresh than my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe.



Garlicky Crumb-Coated Broccoli - French Fridays with Dorie

Wow! Can't believe it's already April 7th ... where is the year 2011 going?  Today it will have to be a short, but sweet post for me because I'm hosting a dinner party at my home tonight for a church activity.  Hubby & I were up until 1am last night cleaning the backyard, hanging lights, and setting up tables and chairs.  And then I woke up this morning and rain is in the forecast! ARGH!!!  A dinner party in the yard will be so much better, but I can quickly rearrange furniture, if needed, to bring tables & chairs inside ... but I'm still praying for no rain and a lovely dinner outside tonight.

The garlicky crumb-coated broccoli was another simple yet very tasty recipe from Dorie.  I loved trying a new way to cook broccoli and for me this is a practical recipe that I'd definitely use again.  I think my bread crumbs and garlic got toasted a bit too much, but it was still good ... just something to keep in mind for next time.  And I loved the lemon zest with the broccoli.  I've made green beans and asparagus with lemon juice in the past, but I've never done the zest thing and never done either with broccoli.  Next time I think I'll search out a larger lemon or two lemons for even more zest!!

To see the results of my fellow Dorie cooks, go HERE.

And you don't want to miss next week ... my kids are already drooling ... vanilla eclairs!!  And there are variations to the recipe that include CHOCOLATE!  You better believe we'll be going the chocolate route here at our house!

P.S.  I'm completely frustrated with the ISO capabilities ... or lack of ... on the camera.  I like to turn-up my ISO when needed without getting a bunch of noise.  Anyone tried or have opinions on the Nikon D7000??  I know it's not as rugged as the D300, but I'm just shooting kids & food & the 7000 has the features that I want.  I tried a D7000 at Costco for a few minutes and was impressed, but I've heard mixed reviews on them.

Quinoa, Fruit, & Nut Salad - French Fridays with Dorie

This week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe can be found on page #138 of Dorie Greenspan's cookbook, Around my French Table.  The quinoa, fruit, and nut salad is something that I would have never picked-out to try without a group like FFwD. 

When we were in the process of adopting our oldest daughter, "Penguin" from a Russian orphanage, we lived in the orphanage with her for a week or so while we waited for the court hearing and paperwork to come through so we can travel with her to Moscow and then back to the USA.  I do not have good memories of Russian food, esp the food we ate in the orphanage.  We paid for our meals there, but I think they still fed us what the kids in that home ate.  On numerous occasions, they placed a bowl of some kind of boiled grain in front of us ... no syrup, sugar, or anything to put on it except weird butter, salt & pepper ... certainly no nuts or fruits!!  No amount of salt could make that boiled grain taste good.  I think they were feeding us millet, but when I look at quinoa, those flavors, smells, and memories come rushing back to me.  FYI: If you want to lose a quick 5+ pounds, take a trip to Russia.

Back to the recipe ... I sent my husband to Wal-Mart late one night to get the ingredients that I needed to make this recipe.  He couldn't find quinoa anywhere and when he asked for assistance, the Wal-Mart workers were no help.  So I ended up getting my quinoa from a bin at a health-food-type-store a few nights later.  This recipe was very easy & quick to make.  I made mine with dried cranberries, almonds, & walnuts. I really liked the nuts with the quinoa. This recipe was good, but I can't say I loved it.  It's no Double-Chocolate Mousse Cake!!  And now after making it and trying all the flavors together, I think I'd prefer making some quinoa with some fruits and nuts and serving it as a breakfast food rather than in a salad.

Blank Sheet Music

My Penguin has been inspired by her choir directors and spends a lot of time each afternoon writing and composing her own, original music.  The poor girl was trying to write her songs out on scratch paper, so after a quick search online, I found this website that I thought I'd pass along because it has some nice options.   I thought this site & some music composition could make for some great homeschooling activities.  Enjoy!!

Salted Butter Break-Ups ~ French Fridays with Dorie

I'm a week late on this recipe and I'm doing it instead of the scallop recipe.  I've had scallops once in my life and it wasn't a pleasant experience.  Maybe it was just the way they were cooked that particular time because I love shrimp and crab.  Anyways ....

The salted butter break-ups were very simple to make but I have to say they tasted just as simple.  While I was working on them, my Penguin kept telling me I should add some chocolate.  After trying them, she was right!  They definitely were not gross, but they tasted a lot like pie crust.  I'm thinking some cinnamon & sugar sprinkled on top before they're baked would be awesome.  Or it might be fun to dip them in Nutella, pudding, fresh strawberry jam, or some kind of fondue.

Hot Days of Spring

About a week ago ... before spring had even officially started ... it was rather warm here ... it was actually pretty hot ... over 90*!  The first swim of the year is always exciting and the extra hot temps last week made swimming and cooling off a must.  The pool water was about 72*, so still WAY too cold for me to even stick me feet in ... I'm spoiled ... but the kids enjoyed playing in the water and doing something different in the afternoon that we hadn't done in a while.

On the way to the pool, we stopped off for some of this:

It was like Peacock never left the water for the winter.  She is a dare-devil in the water and not scared at all of swimming around.  She is my best swimmer!!  She's always the first one in and the last one out.  On this particular day, she hopped out of the pool to take a few laps around the pool on her bike.  I guess a training wheel was lose and when she got too close to the pool, she & her bike fell right into the pool.  It didn't really phase her ... she just swam to the top of the water and over to the side and watched as we fished the bike out of the bottom of the pool.  Never a dull moment!

Turkey is always the first one out of the pool and off to find other things to do.  I think he takes after me.  He likes to stick his feet in to cool off a bit, but he's just not super interested in the whole swimming thing.

A hot AZ afternoon just wouldn't be complete without another treat to help us cool off!

Family Fun Night

So, after my lesson on Sunday, I was feeling like I wanted to do something fun Monday night.  Hubby worked out in I-don't-know-where ... all I know is that it was about an hour drive each way.  He's working a temp job right now on Mondays, so all I care about is what time he gets home and what kind of check he brings home with him. :)  Hubby ended up not getting home until about 8pm and even though it had been a kinda long day in the recording studio & the kids should've been getting ready for bed soon, we were jazzed and ready to have our "Family Fun Night".  Hubby picked up a couple $5 Little Ceaser's pizzas on his way home, we spread old towels out on the family room floor, and watched Fantastic Mr. Fox.  I thought it was a somewhat weird movie (didn't really love the book either), but the kids seemed to love it ....

Earlier in the afternoon, while Turkey was napping, the girls & I tried a new cookie recipe from Alice Medrich's Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-your-Mouth Cookies cookbook.  It was a bit of a toss-up, but we decided on the Bittersweet Decadence Cookies.  Alice recommended a different way of melting the chocolate for this recipe, so we tried it....

I've never sat my bowl of chocolate directly in the simmering water.  After the chocolate was melted, we put the egg/vanilla/sugar mixture in the simmering water as well. 

I only added a healthy 1/2 cup of pecans to the batter because it seemed like there was too much chunkiness and not enough batter, but now after trying the cookies, I'd definitely go for the full 2 cups of nuts next time.  I really liked the pecans in this cookie.  We gave this cookie recipes 10 thumbs up ... and several days later, they still taste good and don't seem dry.

Young Women Lesson #10: Encouraging Enjoyable Family Activities

There are so many things that can be done with this lesson.  We hardly did any of the lesson and still ran out of time.

I was ready to go with this YouTube video, but ran out of time.  I figured it is one that could easily be used another time with another lesson.  If you'd like to use it with this lesson, it fits very nicely with the topic.

We read & discussed the 7th paragraph of "The Family: A Proclamation to the World".  We talked about what "divine design" means and listed the 9 ways to achieve happiness in family life.

With the help of the girls, we made a long list of "family fun" activities on the chalkboard ... traditions, things they enjoy doing with their family, things they'd like to do with their family, free/inexpensive activities, and activities that might require more money &/or planning.

When we had about 10 minutes left of class, we pushed a couple of tables to the middle of the room and made our "family fun sacks".  I just brought brown paper lunch sacks, crayons, colored pencils and the girls each decorated their own bag.  Then I gave the girls some of the cards below (I printed them on cardstock) and the girls were able to write some of their favorite ideas off of the chalkboard for fun family activities on to the cards and put the cards into their bags.  It was nice to do something different at the end of our lesson that involved chatting and a little creative-fun time.

Here are the cards that I made ... some girls filled each card with ideas and some girls wrote one idea per card.

Recording with Firefly

Yesterday I did something that I'd never done before ... I played my violin in a recording studio for an all-female country group, Firefly, because they are working on releasing a new song.  It was very educational and I'm way excited to hear the final product when it is released on itunes in April.  When I was growing-up, I always wanted to play my violin for Disney, so this gave me a little taste of that "dream job" I once wished for.  It was fun ... frustrating at times, but overall fun ... and I hope to do more recording at some point in my life.

Here is a somewhat crazy video that the Firefly girls took yesterday morning ... good luck finding me. :)

Beggar's Spaghetti - French Fridays with Dorie

I have to admit that when I read the ingredients for this week's recipe, I was a little leery.  At first I thought it might be like Fettucini Alfredo, but no cream.  I just wasn't sure how this would turn-out.  And I can tolerate raisins, but they're not typically a food that I like to use in my cooking.  There was no linguine (the recipe calls for linguine) to be found on my Monday morning shopping trip, so I decided to make mine with spaghetti noodles instead and I'm glad I did ... easier for kids of all ages to get on their fork & eat. :)

I picked up from Black Mission Figs from our local Trader Joe's store as well as some fresh Parmesan cheese.

This was a very easy & quick recipe to assemble.  While I waited for my water to boil for the pasta, I chopped up figs, raisins, almonds & pistachios.  I then melted some butter in a large skillet and added the nuts & fruits to the butter.  It smelled like dessert!

After the nuts & fruits had cooked long enough in the butter, I tossed in the cooked pasta and then coated it with lots of grated Parmesan cheese.  A little orange zest was added to the top ... very pretty.

When I took my first bite, I was very pleasantly surprised.  I could hardly taste the raisins ... the dried fruits add just a little bit of a fruity taste to it.  I LOVED the toasted, crunchy nuts in the dish and a little bit of orange zest was anther unexpected favorite for this dish.  Sometimes orange zest can be bitter and overpowering, but it was awesome in this dish ... it added just a little bit of sweetness and a fun flavor to enjoy in my mouth with each bite.  I will definitely be making this again.  I think it could be a simple, comforting meal or a very unique appetizer or side dish.

December Bike Ride

One nice thing about living in AZ is that we can go for bike rides in December.  Not really in July, but December is do-able.  The kids each got a new helmet for Christmas so they were anxious to try out their new helmets....

Savory Cheese & Chive Bread: French Fridays with Dorie

I'm trying to play catch-up with my life this week.  I know I should've baked this bread about a week ago and posted on it several days ago, but....

Monday morning, the kiddies & I made a run to Trader Joe's because they always have great cheeses at very competitive prices.  I decided I wanted to make two loaves of this bread and try the recipe a couple different ways in order to go with meals that I'd be making on Monday & Tuesday nights this week.

One loaf was done with shredded Cheddar-Gruyere, cubed Gruyere, and minced chives.  My daughter was after me to make chili for dinner and I thought these cheeses and flavors would go nicely with chili.

The second loaf was made with grated Parmesan, cubed Gruyere, and minced basil ... I was going for Italian flavors in hopes it would go with the pasta dish that I'm supposed to post this coming Friday.

We all enjoyed this new recipe.  It reminded me a lot of the cheese puffs that we FFWD'ers made back in October.  The flavor of the bread also reminded several of us a lot of cornbread even though there was no cornmeal or anything corny, for that matter, in the recipe.  I tried another slice of the cheddar bread this morning after is was about 12 hours old and I liked it even more.  I thought the flavors and cheesy-ness was even better.  If I were to make this recipe again, I'd definitely go for a cheese like Cheddar over  the Parmesan.

Eternal Families: Young Women Lesson 8, Manual 3

I have some YW lessons to catch-up on, but here's something that is quick & easy to share.  I did not teach yesterday when lesson 8 was presented, but because my laptop was used for this Power Point Presentation, I had it saved on my computer.  Our YW President showed the 3 slides ... first slide is the bulls-eye.  She explained that in archery, you still get some points if you are close and don't hit it right on the center.  The other two slides show a temple and a picture of Jesus Christ is the center and she talked about how not quite hitting your target/goal will not earn you points in those two scenarios.  For example, getting close to the temple and it's blessings is not good enough... you have to hit that goal right in the center in order to get those blessings or "points".

Here is the PPT slide show.  Ignore the slide with the spiders ... not sure why that's there.

Click on the underlined title below to download:
Man 3 Lesson 8 Eternal Families

Save the document to your desktop.  Double-click on the saved document and it should open in PowerPoint.  Once you are in PowerPoint, click on the "Slideshow" tab and then click on "From Beginning" and your slideshow should open.  Use the enter key to move forward in the slide show and the backspace key to go backwards in the slideshow.  Just make sure that you skip over the spider slide.  :)

After playing around with the file, I found this explanation:

What is this? Explain that although a bulls eye is optimum, people can sometimes win with enough outside shots once the points are added up.

Let’s say your girls are having an archery activity. You tell them to aim for the center, but sometimes you can make as many points you need to win by hitting close enough. You don’t always have to aim for the bulls eye to win. Coming close can count.

Now what if you tell your girls to aim for this? A temple marriage.

Or better yet, this? Coming unto Christ.

Is close enough going to good enough? When it comes to aiming for gospel goals close enough is not good enough. There is no way a young woman will earn enough points from outside shots to win the prize. Tell you girls to aim for the bulls eye.

Devil's Food Cake ~ Baked Sunday Mornings

I know I'm a few days late, but I really wanted to try this cake and I have lots of good excuses for my late-ness.  Sick kids ALL month ranks high on my excuse list.  The diseases never seemed to end ... just rotating from one kid to another ... and always different symptoms & problems.  After a busy weekend, my plan was to bake the cake Sunday afternoon, but, of course, I woke up Sunday morning feeling crummy & I had a terrible sore throat, so I went back to bed.  When I finally felt like getting up, violin practicing had to take priority over baking.  Monday I still wasn't feeling great, so Tuesday was my day for some chocolate baking & good-ness.

Last week when I was caring for sick kiddies, my mom brought me over a slice of the cake that she had made, so I knew before I started that there were some things that I wanted to tweak a little bit.  The cake was fairly easy & quick to make.  I used Trader Joe's bittersweet chocolate instead of the dark chocolate because I wanted my cake to be more chocolaty.  I wasn't in the mood to break out an expensive cocoa powder, so I just used Hershey's Dark Cocoa Powder in my cake.  I also omitted the coffee.  I poured some vanilla extract (probably a couple tablespoons) into a glass measuring cup and then filled it the rest of the way with water & then heated my vanilla/water concoction in the microwave to make it hot.

When it came time for frosting, I knew I did not want to make the *sugary* angel frosting.  I do not, DO NOT like sweet frosting with my chocolate cakes.  I wanted something that complimented the cake and it had to be chocolate.  I considered a chocolate ganache, but went with a chocolate-sour cream frosting ...basically the same as ganache but instead of heavy cream, I use sour cream, so it has more of a tangy flavor and it sets-up a bit better.  I smeared my chocolate frosting between the layers of the cake and then all over the outside.  Turkey was anxious to help put some strawberries on top of the cake.

We served our cake with a small scoop of ice cream, but afterwards wished that I had X-ed the ice cream ... totally unnecessary and almost distracting.  The texture and flavor of the cake was excellent and this would be a great go-to recipe for a chocolate cake.  Personally, I prefer something even darker, richer, and more dense, but not everyone likes my super-rich chocolate stuff, so this recipe would be more of a crowd pleaser.  I'd definitely go with berries again and maybe even some mini chocolate chips mixed in with my batter. 

Hubby took a big chunk of cake to work to share with all the ladies there, so we'll see what they say about the cake.  And then I ate some more cake for breakfast ... couldn't help it! 

Baby Cream

Yesterday, Baby Addison turned one year old!  Can't believe I witnessed her coming into this world 12 quick months ago.  I actually took these photos at the beginning of January, but I'm just now getting them off of my camera card.  And they're quite appropriate for a birthday post!

Memory Lane Monday

Three years ago ... I must've been crazy cause I flew across the country with three VERY small children all by myself.  I must've been craving warmer weather that bad.  Turkey was almost 6 months old, Peacock a ripe old 16 months, and Penguin a somewhat fresh 5 year old.  Good times!