Double Duty

For any of you who know me, you know that I love to bake cakes. Well, I don't necessarily love the baking, but I love the decorating! I'm starting to like the baking too, as I learn to be more patient. Before, I just wanted to hurry and get the cake made so I could decorate it, ya 'know? It would be like a sketch artist to have to make their paper before they could actually sketch something. But I am now seeing the beauty in the actual baking part of it and it helps that I have some fantastic tried and true recipes. I skip the whole "from scratch" concept and just "doctor up" cake mixes with recipes from the cake doctor, Ann Byrn. Not because I'm totally opposed or scared to bake from scratch, but because these doctored cake mixes are sooooo good!! I take a lot of care in to how the cake actually tastes as well as looks because people don't want to eat dry, tasteless cakes with frosting that tastes like a stick of butter dipped in sugar. (That's how I feel about grocery store bakery cakes). The cakes actually taste like they were made from scratch but are super easy. My favorite is her "Darn Good Chocolate Cake" which is made from a Dark Chocolate Fudge cake mix and has chocolate chips in the batter. Yum! I love to pair it with a whipped chocolate ganache filling and whipped cream frosting. So good! That's exactly what I did yesterday for our Little Flowers party. And for those who don't like chocolate, I also made a vanilla yogurt cake made with, you guessed it, vanilla yogurt! It was so moist and delicious, another wonderful recipe from The Cake Mix Doctor.
This weekend I will be making a cake for my Nana's 80th birthday. She loves strawberries and her favorite dessert is Strawberry Shortcake. So, the obvious would be to make a strawberry cake. I'm using a plain cake mix but adding fresh strawberries, coconut and pecans. Wanna guess where I got the recipe? From the Cake Mix Doctor, of course. I hope it's delicious!
Here's my Little Flower cake. I was running late for the party (who, me?) and put the flowers on when we got there, so it's a bit sloppy looking. But the girl's loved it. Chatterbox helped put the flowers on and did a great job! And here she is with her certificate of completion.


Having to make two cakes in one week while trying to manage a household and take care of a 5, 3 and 1 year old who has an earache, along with many other things happening in the week can be a bit stressful to say the least! (Yes, I actually offered to make these cakes. But when I said I'd do the Little Flowers, I didn't realize it would be the same week as Nana's party) And may even make you a little crazy and you'll find yourself doing things like this to all your cake ingredients:
I'll let you know how Nana's cake turns out.

Meet the Family

For security purposes I will not be using my family members real names. In honor of my Nana, I will be naming my children after the Little Miss and Mr. books which she read to me when I was young. When I was 18 and moved to Florida I was very homesick and missed my family desperately. (Which is why I moved back after only 4 months!) I thought of Nana daily and we would write to eachother and she would send me goodies in the mail. One day, I remembered those books that I adored so much as a child and asked her about them. She couldn't believe I remembered them so she sent a few in the mail. I still have them and they are now on my daughters shelf and I have been reading them to her since she was a toddler. They're so much fun and they make my kids laugh.
There are a lot of Little Miss characters that could have worked for my daughter. She's my oldest at 5 ("Am I 5 1/2 yet, Mom?") Oh, yes. This month she is officially 5 1/2. I looked up a list of the characters and they each had a description about that book. "Little Miss Bossy" was the first one that caught my eye. But if Malia knew I was calling her that she would let it get to her head and would most definitely think that she ran this house. Uh, what I really mean is, it wouldn't be very nice to call her that. I could have also used "Little Miss Trouble" but again, not very nice. (I'm joking, of course!) Then I saw "Little Miss Curious" the girl who wanted to know everything. My daughter is continually asking me questions. "Why, why, why, why and why?" If I don't know the answer, we look it up. She already realizes Mom doesn't know everything and that she wants to know more than Mom. God blessed this child with an amazing brain and it is a daily challenge to occupy her with things in school that don't bore her. BUT, I decided not to use this name because all kids are curious. It just didn't explain her enough. SO, the name I decided to use is actually the first one that came to mind and is actually one of the books that we have and one of my daughter's favorites. "Little Miss Chatterbox". Anyone who knows my little girl would agree that this is indeed the perfect name for her. She talks from the minute she wakes up until the minute she falls asleep. It doesn't matter if she's in a room full of people or if she is by herself. She will talk to anyone and anything. She's either telling a story, singing a song, asking questions, reading out loud or explaining something to her younger brothers. She has a better vocabulary than I do and even corrects me sometimes if I pronounce something wrong. She started calling me "Mama" when she was 4 months old and my husband "Dada" and 5 months. By the time she was 9 months old, I had a list of 20 words that she said including "Book bag". Yes, she has been a talker from the beginning and she fills our house with much joyful entertainment and expression.
The first name I thought of for my oldest son, now 3 years old, was Mr. Sweetheart. He has such a gentle, loving heart and is always ready to give hugs and kisses. He lets his sister boss, I mean, dictate, what to do and if she gets angry and yells at him he just tells her that he loves her. If she hits him he tells her he forgives her and trys to hug her. He looks after his little brother who he called, "My baby" when we brought him home from the hospital. I remember when the little one was just a newborn and would start crying. My older son would say, "My baby is crying!" And then would run to get him and caress his head. See? My little sweetheart... but unfortunately, there is no Mr. Sweetheart. So the next name I thought of was Mr. Funny. He loves to make people laugh. He's been a joker since he could walk and can make anyone smile. I even asked my daughter to come up with one word to describe him and she said, "Funny!" So, Mr. Funny it is.
My youngest son is the most ticklish baby I know. Well, I suppose he's a toddler now since he's walking, but still my baby none the less. As soon as he learned to laugh, he would laugh at the slightest touch. In fact, when he would have a poopy diaper the wipes would tickle him and he would laugh through every diaper change. Now that he's older, he'll come after you with wiggling fingers saying, "Ticky, ticky, ticky." It seems this boy was born to tickle. And so his name shall be "Mr. Tickle".
As for my husband...I decided I wouldn't use the Mr. books for him because there is only one word that comes to mind when I think of a nickname for him. And that's "Rock". He's strong, dependable, stable and is the foundation to this family. I love everything about my husband. (The good and the bad) I am so thankful to have him as my husband (it takes a lot of patience to put up with me. hehehe) and thankful that he is such an incredible father.
Thank you for taking time to meet my family!