Cakes and things

Two of the girls recently took a very basic cake decorating class that a friend offered at our church. We definitely learned alot. For instance, in our house we usually leave out the butter or oil when making a cake from a box mix. I am not really sure how that started, maybe trying to make it less fattening. We usually use more water and omit the oil. It makes for a very moist cake but not a very tall cake. I always wondered why my cakes didn't rise very well. But now I know. The cake on the left is B#4's cake which she used butter for and the cake on the right is B#2's cake which left out the butter. Now we know...use the butter!!!



The cake below is B#4's finished product. I think both of the girls cakes turned out nicely considering it was their first attempt.

This one is B#2's cake which also turned out well. They both had a strawberry filling in them with buttercream frosting. All of this cake decorating led into going to this neat cupcake shop in a town near us. I had read about it on another friend's blog and thought it would be a fun place to go but needed to wait for a special occasion to go. Our second annual girls antiquing day out for B#2's birthday seemed just the right occasion. It was a very cute shop with some yummy cupcake choices. I chose a pumpkin muffin, B#1 had a red velvet cupcake filled with chocolate ganache and rasperry icing, B#3 had a peanut butter cupcake with peanut butter buttercream frosting, B#6 had an oreo cookie cupcake, our family friend, Katie, chose a chocolate cupcake filled with caramel with bits of toffee stuff in the frosting and B# 4 chose a very boring but pretty yellow cupcake with chocolate buttercream frosting.

Now we are all inspired to try our hand at beautiful cupcakes so we sent B#1 to town today to get us some supplies. I think B#4 is going to make a couple of different kinds to take for our church potluck on Sunday.

One of the fun things about girls

One of the fun things about having girls is getting to dress them up. For some reason there just isn't as much in the way of boy clothes as there are girl clothes so we have been having fun picking B#9's clothes each day. She has a closet full of clothes!!! It is so much fun.

Welcome Blessing #9

Dear hubby at the helm here... not that I know a thing about posting blogs...

The day we've been waiting for has finally come. DW (Dear Wife) has finally delivered our precious little daughter, who from here on, we'll refer to as blessing #9. The kids are excited to have her home. (they're glad mom's home too). It's been fun to watch everyone interact with this tiny, tiny little peanut.. So, without further ado, I introduce you to Blessing #9.