My Favorite Things...

My friend Lizzy posted her favorite things the other day and I loved it! So I am doing the same and adding some imagery as well! I am wondering how many I can get before I run out of time! :)

                                                      ~ Shopping!!!

                                     ~ Wedding dresses!

                                                   

                                     ~ Beautiful settings!

                                              ~ Rush Limbaugh :)

                               ~ I LOVE going to weddings :)

                                        ~ Cute and chic aprons! 

                                           ~ Fresh baked food ~

  

                                       ~ Beautiful well decorated rooms.

                                      ~ I loved helping my mom with the gardening

                                       growing up and can't wait to be able to do it

                                      again! :)

                                                 Rocky Road Ice Cream!!!!

                                              ~ England! Can't wait to return.

                                                      ~ Fresh razors! 

                                        ~ Does anyone not love kittens? :)

                                  ~ Helping my dad around the ranch!

                                          ~ A full tank of gas!!! :P

                                           ~ Beautiful classical music

                         ~  David McCullough is one of my favorite authors!

                                          

                                             ~ I LOVE to grocery shop!!!

                                             ~ My beautiful Colorado!!! :)

                            ~ Touring old houses with my mom and sisters!

                                       ~ Fresh sharp pencils!!!

                                      ~ Winston Churchill, one of my heros!

                                                   ~Rainy days!!!

                                  ~Beautiful dishes!!!!

           ~Ramona Quimby is one of my FAVORITE characters!!!!

                        ~ I LOVE BENJAMIN!!!!!! My best friend ~

                                        ~I love chatting with my mom and sisters!!!

                         ~I love craft books, cake and cooking books!!!

                                 ~I love homemade biscuits 

                      ~  Going out to tea houses with my mom and sisters!

                 ~                     I love fresh clean sheets!

                    ~  The Little House on the Prairie books and t.v. series!

                                            ~ I love beautiful furniture

                                                ~ And my favorite, Earl Grey!!!!

Whew! I know there is a BUNCH more, but I am out of time :) Happy Tuesday everybody! 

Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Ephesians 5:20   (should I do a list of all the bad things I am thankful for too? :P Maybe not :) Like I said Im out of time!!! 

Silhouettes

A while ago my sister Himilce gave me some of her magazines that she was finished with and one of them was a Country Living. In it was an article on Silhouettes. I cannot get over them now! I just love silhouettes!!!! I was able to find the pictures from the magazine so you all can share my enthusiasm! It has given me so many ideas to do things with. Like decorate a beautiful white cake with a black silhouette on top and maybe black beads going around the side of the cake. Or do a black and white theme for a future bathroom!! Thank you Himilce! :P

Happy Mother's Day Mom!!!

A very special Happy Mother's Day to my MOM!!!! Mom you are the kindest and greatest role model I could ever have. I am so very thankful that God blessed me with you as my mother. I pray that I can be to my children as you were to us all. Thank you for your sacrifices and all your many many prayers for all 7 of us!!!!! I posted this picture for you, because it has always reminded me of  you and your sweetness and what you were like when you were a little girl. I love you so very much!!!

Brownies

Today I made brownies for an evening at our friends house tonight. I got this recipe from Giada from Everyday Italian. It is so easy and delicious all in one! You just need one jar of orange marmalade and one brownie box. Make the brownies and pour them into your pan and then simply warm up your marmalade in the microwave and then pour it on top of the brownie batter. I only use about three fourths of a jar, but Giada calls for a whole jar. Then you just bake it. It does take a little longer to cook because of the extra liquid.

Boy oh boy it is delicious as long as you like orange in your chocolate! :P

Marius Clam Chowder

Benjamin and I love Clam Chowder and Benjamin loves to make it! And I love him making it! :)

He buys this HUGE seafood mixture. It has everything from Shrimp, Squid, Octopus, Mussels, and Surimi. He usually cuts up the seafood into smaller portions and then stirs it on a frying pan with white wine, spices and I don't know what else! Then he takes his Progresso Clam Chowder can and pours it into a cooking pot with about a cup and a half of milk added. (they tell you not to add more milk, but this tastes SO much better!) And there you go! Sorry I don't have a picture of the finished product but I think you get the idea! I am hoping he will come home from the office and make it for me!

Beautiful Friday

Today it is so beautiful out. Nice and cloudy with the birds chirping. We had a great and fast week. I went to Benjamin's DEP meeting last night at the NAVY office and had a lot of fun watching and learning. It was only supposed to be an hour or so, but it turned into six! My plans went out the window when I realized I had to stay for the whole meeting! It was a lot of fun though. We had to sign some papers, since Benjamin is only sixty days out now and I needed to come along and sign too! Its getting exciting for both of us. I will have to endure the long months him being away, but the whole adventure of it thrills me! And I love to see Benjamin's eyes glowing with excitement about it all.

In other news, I will be making a girls wedding cake the end of this month. Well, she is not having a traditional wedding cake, but a cup cake tower. Her colors are green, black and silver. Fortunately for me she is not too particular! She sent me some pictures that she liked and I was very thankful that it wasn't something extremely difficult. The only thing that concerns me is that it has already began to get really warm here in Arizona and I will need to learn the techniques of keeping the frosting from melting!

I posted a picture of Benjamin and I on our late anniversary trip this year and also a picture of our cat Bay, who I find sleeping in positions like this quite often! :)

I hope everyone has a fun and great weekend!

God bless ~Elizabeth

Amazing

 My mom recently told me about this little girl and her art. My mom is an artist and so of course she took a lot of interest in her :) The video is an interview and tells a little bit of her story. She sold her first self portrait for 10,000 when she was 7. She started drawing when she was 4 and painting when she was six years old. She grew up in an atheist family and had no idea about God. She said she started having dreams about Jesus and wanted to paint what she saw. The family is now saved and she is much older, but her work and the pictures of Jesus is amazing. :)  Her sweet spirit blessed me when I first watched this. I hope you will watch.  Also here is her web page so you can see all of her work. 

Flowers...

I was doing our grocery shopping at Wal -Mart yesterday and boy was it a busy place! So many people doing their shopping like me before the weekend. I love to shop.  Well, as long as life isn't too busy that is.  Anyways, it was pretty bustling at the store and I was just about to check out, when I remembered that I had wanted to go look in the garden area and see if they had any good herbs. Ah, what a transformation! All those beautiful flowers and plants. I just wanted to go and plant and garden and water and pick!!!! We live in a upstairs apartment/condo. So there is no way for me to go and plant a bunch of flower beds or herb gardens! I know I could get a couple of pots, but it isn't the same when you know you will be moving in a few months and your not sure the flowers would survive the move. But I am very glad I decided to go out and look at the herbs at Wal- Mart! Happy Spring everyone!

Beloved Truths....

 ⁴ Surely he took up our infirmities 
       and carried our sorrows, 
       yet we considered him stricken by God, 
       smitten by him, and afflicted.

 ⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions, 
       he was crushed for our iniquities; 
       the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, 
       and by his wounds we are healed.

 ⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray, 
       each of us has turned to his own way; 
       and the LORD has laid on him 
       the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:4-6

This scripture is so meaningful to me and has been in my head for the last week. Have a blessed Sunday :)

Tea Party......

Tonight we are participating in a Tea Party at our capitol. I am excited that people are upset and wanting to stop what has been happening with all of the spending. I pray that truth will come to light in the heart of the people. After all the people are the ones with the power (right?). We empower our government. Anybody else participating in your local Tea Party? Leave a comment and tell me what you thought! :)

Raspberry Trifle

Im baking this today, for tomorrow! :) Its going to be difficult to keep my fingers out of it =)

Rainy Morning Breakfast

This morning we woke up to rain pouring down on the windows. I did not want to get out of bed!  It was so nice hearing the rain fall. I made us a nice warm breakfast. Eggs, seasoned oven cooked potatoes and vanilla french toast. I watched Nigella Lawson's video "French Toast Doughnuts". It sure got me in the mood to make breakfast! I don't know if it is a good thing, but I love being in a certain environment while Im cooking. I love burning candles in the kitchen and everything in order and then to have rain falling outside! It was a perfect Saturday morning and the just what I needed as I started our taxes! I am happy to say we are all done with out taxes for this year! Yaaaayyyy I always dread doing the taxes not knowing what to expect! And I put it off until the last! I had meant to have them done a couple of weeks ago! Thankfully they were very easy! Not like last years :P

I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter! 

Sweets........

These two are our little sweet hearts. They love each other so much. I always find them giving each other baths. Here is a glimpse of their love. :D 

(and I especially love it when they want to get cozy with me!)

Enjoying....

San Diego visiting Benjamin's brother. I can never get a good picture of Benjamin! He is always pulling a funny face on me!

Hello everyone! This is a really late post. Benjamin and I just returned from San Diego. Clearly it has been a really busy couple of weeks! I feel so behind with my blogging world! I haven't caught up with any of my beloved blogging buddies.

To start off with Marie and John were here a week and half ago, which flew by! And in the midst of them being here, working and preparing three baby shower cakes I got sick on the day I scheduled to make the cakes! I am so thankful I had Marie with me :) I think I would have been up for 24 hours if she hadn't helped me like she did. I felt bad having her help with her own baby cake, but Marie and I are sisters =P

We had so much fun with her and John. They bought us their favorite game, Monopoly and we played several times together in the evening. They are both pros and so of course you can guess who one!

Marie, Himicle and Katheryn's baby shower was lovely! The guests, food, dessert and games were a lot of fun. It was quite interesting having a threesome baby shower. I hope they loved it as much as I did :P I loved making their cakes (thankfully with Marie's help) and except for being sick! I made the cakes a week ahead of time (luckily) and froze them in the freezer. Marie helped me with the crumb coat and making and frosting the cakes. Then I did all the detail and designing. I did a color flow image on each cake and then made royal icing pearls around the top. Using pearl dusting powder. Everything was edible. The nice thing about the images, I put the image on a flat round fondant plaque. So the (Mom's) can take the image home. It made me feel better too, because after all that work I couldn't bear to eat into it! :)

Thankfully I feel rested, and most of the laundry done! I shall get back into the routine of things :)

                          ~  My Baby and Me

Today I cleaned out our office and walk-in closet before I went to work. Because next week Marie and John will be visiting for Marie's baby shower! And they will be sleeping in our spare bedroom which we use as an office. I am getting more and more excited about it. The first thing Marie and I are going to do is each other's hair! We both need high lights so badly :P The rest of my family will be coming down as well :) It will be so nice to see my parents and the rest of my siblings. Its going to be a really busy week. I am making the cakes for the baby shower. Its a three girl baby shower. Marie, Himilce and Katheryn. So next week I am going to be busy baking away! :) I will be sure to take some pictures of the cakes and of our company! :)

Spring In The Air.......

Musings - by Eliza M on Polyvore.com

Books..

I have been reading this book by Charlotte Bronte called The Professor. It has been a great read especially after I finished Wives & Daughters which was wonderful. I always find it hard to start another book after I just read a really good one. :)

Fondant Making....

Well, I was able to make the fondant. It was so much fun to make! I was laughing when I put my hands in the warm melted marshmallows! Once you melt the marshmallows, you dump it on a greased countertop add 3/4 a bag of powdered sugar, grease your hands really well and start kneading! :) It was a mess!!!! But it turned out really well I think. Here is the recipe I used from Peggy's Baking Corner

16 ounces white mini-marshmallows (use a good quality brand)

2 to 5 tablespoons water

2 pounds icing sugar (please use C&H Cane Powdered Sugar for the best results)

½ cup Crisco shortening (you will be digging into it so place in a very easily accessed bowl)

If you go to to her page, click on Baking Corner, then scroll down and on the far right is Fondant and Icing 101. I have never tried making Fondant before, but I had heard that it can be difficult. This recipe was so easy and a lot of fun! :)

I had fun this morning garage sailing with newmom. She had heard that there were two neighborhood sails, where the whole neighborhood participates in garage sails. Both of them in really nice areas. She was in search of baby clothes and I was in search of candles. I did okay, but other then that it was dud after dud!!! Two huge neighborhoods and not a good garage sail among them! :) We had a lot of fun anyways. And since we hadn't caught up with each other lately, it served us well :)

Todays Happenings...

My verse today is 1 Thessalonians 5:16

"Be Joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you!"

I didn't have to work today which is nice because I have Fridays to clean and catch up. Also my class usually falls on Friday and I need the WHOLE day to bake and decorate my cake for the evening class. But I am taking a break this month from it, not because I want to! We are just too busy and we will be celebrating three baby showers at then end of the month and I am attempting to make all three baby cakes! My last class for Wilton 3 would fall on the same week of the baby showers and I don't think I could do a three tiered wedding cake and three baby cakes all in the same week! WHEW! We are also going away the last week of March and I need to get our taxes done before we leave. So that is my long explanation of why I am not taking Wilton 3 this month :)

Today I am going to attempt to make homemade fondant! Its really expensive in the store to purchase. But its only a couple of dollars to make! I am determined to conquer this recipe :) I will update and let ya know how it turns out and if it does I will post the recipe! :)

Bay Episodes..

Here he is again. He loves to sleep with something over him! I find him like this all the time! He must have his blankets :)

After....

The roses on the top and left are mine, Benjamin did the one on the right! :) He loves to make me laugh! Not to bad for his first try! :)

Here is my cake with all that sugar on top! This was my last class for Wilton 1. I still need to practice all that I learned. Its pretty time consuming after you make the cake, figure the color sequence and then actually make the cake look pretty!

It was pretty hard at first working on my roses. But I realized that my frosting was just way to thick. I spent most of my time at class struggling with the frosting stiffness. I had to use the roses that I made for my cake even if they looked terrible! I managed to squeeze out some, but I was not pleased and I did not want to use them for my cake! All in all I received my certificate of completion, but I went home and took off the ugly ones and worked my frosting until it was the right consistency. And sure enough I popped out some really pretty roses! :)

Before...

Here is my cake before I decorated it. It looked so good at first! I put it in a nice carrying cake holder, but that didn't stop it from slipping and smashing into the side of the tupperware on my way to class! It was my fault, thinking that it was secure enough in the holder. I don't have any pictures of the damage. I was able to fix a lot of it. But I wasn't able to push the cake back onto the cake board! Ha oh well :)

The cake is chocolate with chocolate pudding as the filling. The pudding kept the cake really moist! I have been learning so much and I am very glad I took this class! Its all about learning! And learning from our MISTAKES! :)

Mornings in the Sun

               ~Breakfast with the sunrise 

I had a lovely couple O mornings this week. I have been getting up before the sun comes out and after making Benjamin's lunch and breakfast for the day and sending him on his way, I make myself a little breakfast and grab my books, blanket and head outside to our little patio. The first of the sun feels so good on my face while I am getting into God's word. It is one of the happiest parts of my day I think! 

I have been reading about our covenant with God, Jesus and marriage. It has been so interesting and has grabbed my attention in so many areas, my relationship with the Lord and with Benjamin. I am getting addicted to this little routine! 

(I noticed my cheeks were pretty red yesterday:) 

I don't want any Ol farmer tan, I better be careful!

Memory Verse For The Week

¹²My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. ¹⁷This is my command: Love each other.

John 15:12-17 NIV

Bay Episodes..

This is how I find Bay sleeping 70 % of the time. He happens to fall asleep with that tongue sticking out! :)

Wilton 1 Class 3

               These are my first ones

            My first rose :)

                  My favorites!

Here are some pictures of my cupcakes from last night. They smell so good I want to eat one right now! The first ones were experimental. As I get going I can't stop and I run out of cupcakes! The final ones are my favorite. I love the violet with the chocolate cake. You cant tell to well, but in the middle of the flower there are black dots. So anyhow there they are! :)