A Spider-Man Cake

     Today is this sweet guy's 33rd birthday. He's the best husband, daddy and friend. And I'm simply pleased as punch that he's mine.
     The other night we were talking and I asked him what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday. He wanted a chocolate and caramel cake with cookies and cream frosting. In the process of discussing birthdays and cake I said something to Buirlen about how maybe we could make a Spider-Man cake for his birthday coming up in March. He latched onto this idea, and so we decided to do it now. Don't worry, Luke got his choice last night at his birthday party with the Williams family. But tonight, we are celebrating with Spider-Man!

This boy is currently in a "Spider-Man is cool" phase. At Christmas, I found a Spider-Man action figure and that was a well spent $5. He sleeps with it most nights. His Ama has managed to find him quite a few shirts, Auntie Keren made him a mask, and Auntie Anna got him a sleeping bag. The boy is loved. 

I've been enjoying watching the Great British Baking Show lately. So, making a Spider-Man cake was a good opportunity to practice my cake decorating skills. I decided on a lemon and orange cake and colored it blue.   

It has a blueberry filling.

Blue frosting. 

I decided to try my hand at making marshmallow fondant. I pretty much just tastes like sugar, but.....

it created a lovely smooth finish. 

Ta-Da!

And this weeks new cookbook recipe. A tomato tart. That Pioneer Woman knows what's up. This was tasty!

My Sweet Beulah Bee. 

Taking a snooze with Ama

Tea quotes

Happy Today. 

"What a desolate place would be a world without a flower." ~Clara Lucas Balfour

Today...And the Beginning of the 20's, May They Be Roaring!

Today. Saturday. Legos. Muffins. Scrapbooking. Tea. Music. 

This girl and her spectacular smile and beautiful eyes.

This boy. He loves his sister, Spider Man, scrambled eggs, his cousins, and making messes. 

When your love of cousins combines with your love of making messes....Amazing things happen. 

Where or where could that boy be. 

This girl, she has skills. She can go for days without pooping, but then she blows. I'm getting my poopsplosion clean up skills honed into a streamlined process. 

My Grandpa Kinney loved cookbooks and over the years he gave me quite a few. For Christmas, my mom gave me a couple of his that she found, a sort of last gift from Grandpa. I've always been really bad at using my cookbooks. I've tended to just do stuff from my head, or go to the internet for a recipe. Well, I've decided that this year that is going to change. My goal for 2020 is to use my lovely cookbooks. So far so good, I've tried quite a few new recipes and it's been fun. 

When I was a kid my family lived in Kenya for a couple years. While we were there, my Grandpa would send us audio letters. He kept a tape recorder in his car and when he was out driving, he would talk to us. I remember listening to these as a kid. Well, my dad recently was able to convert them to digital so we could hear them again. I opened them up a few weeks ago and started to cry. It's been so fun to hear Granda's voice again and all the little quirks and mannerisms of how he spoke that might be easy to forget one day. It's been a neat gift. 

Don't forget that joy is found in Jesus, and He so wants you to choose it!

"Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day." 

~Henri J.M. Nouwen