Cakeria!

::before::

most of the ingredients...and a tinker toy

::after::

set up...last minute details

the bride's choice...

coconut layer cake with strawberry puree filling
my favorite...

biscuit de savoie with chambord syrup, chambord buttercream filling, and dark chocolate glaze waiting for flowers and the wedding party...

carrot cakes with orange italian cream cheese frosting

classic white velvet cakes with vanilla mousseline buttercream
congratulations ted and kate!

fabric

i was given a very generous gift to a quilt shop from my dear friend, elin, for my birthday...with those funds, i bought myself 2 yards each of these fabrics:

that's ivory lotus pond from amy butler's "lotus" collection
and:

this one is ombre cool blue from the carolina collection from anna griffin and windham fabrics

these were destined to be a reversible wrap skirt for myself, for easter. got them home...so excited and laid them out on the bed to get a good look. i stepped back in shock. i grabbed chris. these were a perfect match to our new bedroom wall color. looked beautiful against our new brass bed (handed down from mommom). oh no! they were not destined to be a skirt...but rather...CURTAINS! and maybe some pillows. and added to a new quilt. works in progress. hoping some of that progress will be done this weekend, so you can see some pics. we're even swapping out our old dressers for some even older new-to-us ones from chris' folks! bedroom makeover! fun!

The Lord has risen!

Happy Easter!

This easter is going to be unique for one very big reason. Every other easter, my entire family would look forward (in one way or the other) to meeting up for an egg hunt and dinner and being greeted by my Mommom shouting out, "the LORD has risen!" and your well-trained and joyful response would be, "He is risen indeed!"

Mommom passed away February 6th. I wanted to write about it for awhile and somehow couldn't. You'll remember me writing about how she developed MRSA after minor surgery, and her battle with antibiotics. We thought she beat it. She came home for about one week, before needing to be rushed back to the hospital. She was so very sick and suffering. The suffering lasted saturday until early friday morning. I think i was so shocked...even though she was obviously ill, obviously suffering. I felt wronged somehow. She should be here now. But that's not really true. God called her home. He had to take a very well woman and break her body to bring her into His presence. And truthfully, I find no other comfort aside from the truth that Mommom KNEW God. She may never have gotten into theology or "deep" thinking of the Bible, but she loved Jesus and hung her hope on Him. I can't help but credit her with teaching us all the simple truth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, who so loved us that he took on our sinfulness, in full, and hung it on the cross, so that we would never have to suffer it again. So that we would be forgiven. So that we would be returned to our Father, as we should be. So, while today I will miss her deeply, I am eternally grateful. I will see her again!

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' " Then they remembered his words.

Luke 24:1-8

...He has risen indeed!

Amen!

preparing for Easter

we've been getting ready for Easter this week by reading from our favorite kids storybook Bible. it's The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name, by Sally Lloyd-Jones, and illustrated by Jago. i got this for stella last year and it made the Bible take on new life for me! it is an amazing book...

i have to share with you from this great book. this is from the story of the last supper...

"My body is like this bread. It will break," Jesus told them. "This cup of wine is like my blood. It will pour out." "But this is how God will rescue the whole world. My life will break and God's broken world will mend. My heart will tear apart - and your hearts will heal. Just as the passover lamb died, so now I will die instead of you. My blood will wash away all of your sins. And you'll be clean on the inside - in your hearts."....."I won't be with you long," he said. "You are going to be very sad. But God's Helper will come. And then you'll be filled up with a Forever Happiness that won't ever leave. So don't be afraid. You are my friends and I love you."

for images from the book and to enter to win a copy of it for yourself, go visit this blog.

what's happenin'

stella lost tooth number 3. this one being the top left. top righty has slanted himself over to try to take over the whole space, thus making our beautiful girl look slightly hill-billy-ish. teeth number 4 and 5 are seriously wiggly. toothfairy's gonna be busy.

10 in 10...from chris to me for january...this amazing chalkboard was completely made up from scratch with a wonderful rim to hold the chalk and a nice big blackboard for me to write all kinds of stuff on for school. it currently has some questions from the catechism for young children and our bible memory verse. we use it for reading, memorization and copy work. pure love.

and just because he's so darn cute.

but while posting these adorable photos...this sat over my right shoulder, trying to be ignored. this is so totally disgusting. go ahead, look closely. nasty.

but, friends, it can be done.

exactly 30 minutes later, we have a clean sink.

hand washed by me. hand dried and put away by chris. time for bed with a clear conscience.

media free...continues!

well, we thought the media free week would be horrible...kids shrieking, parents swearing, utter frustration. and, well...nothing. the kids were great. made great art, played pretend like nobodies business. we got organized. did taxes. cleaned house. life feels good and sane here. so we're keeping it up sans rules. we just don't turn on the tv anymore. its not a thought. we play games. read books. write. draw. paint. knit. rip. knit again. (more on that later). so...i'm figuring out how to keep the blog going, while not visiting the computer as often. i have things to write about...i just haven't sat here to do it! i'll get on that.

and thank you to ann krestene for the bread recipe. yummy! we have been loving the zojirushi...is it normal to go through a 5lb. bag of flour a week??? yikes. we are gonna get chunky around here! (hope not, really...just sayin' we're eatin' a good amount of overly delicious bread as of late!)

well folks...i hope to write a more interesting (both verbally and visually) post very soon. just wanted to say...i'm here again!

xo

happy birthday to me! (and a week of media free)

yep, that's right...a skating party was planned on my behalf by my very dear daughter and cooperative husband! this party was the grand finale to a weekend of birthday fun!

saturday, we packed up to go to my parent's house...where we dropped off the kids for an overnight stay...somewhere! i had no idea what was in store for me! we headed off to central pennsylvania, to a small town called columbia. it's about 40 minutes south of harrisburg on the susquehanna river. we went to a local market/bizarre thing to browse around. we met two really nice women selling their handknits/handspun and they had wheels with them...so i was all ga-ga over them. we left there and went straight to the pharmacy across the street. totally old fashioned place: a diner in the front with locals staring as we walked in. odd toys and bits for sale amidst balm, toothpaste and remedies. i purchased a small schleich lamb...to put up for inspiration to one day own a real one! we walked around the town a bit, then drove a bit to hike over to chickie's rock. a really beautiful view of the susquehanna(didn't take my own photo, so here's a borrowed one). from there, we drove north on 441 to harrisburg for a great tapas dinner at suba. YUM...loved every morsel. we high-tailed it out of there to lancaster, for some possible contra dancing, but finding ourselves a little on the tired end, decided on coffee and dessert at the prince street cafe. (ps-we even saw our friends' son's photo on the wall - christopher burkholder will be playing there in march!) (pps-the contra dancing WILL happen next month!)
so, not knowing where we were staying, i started to ask questions...and little by little realized we were heading to the exact same place we stayed on our wedding night! this AMAZING bed and breakfast that has a detached spring house - 3 floors, fireplace in the living room, cozy bedroom and roomy bathroom...and the breakfast is soooooo good! it was all too much! i was beaming from ear to ear!
we awoke to snow falling lightly...ate the amazing peach-french toast breakfast and went back to the spring house for fireside coffee, bible time and knitting. oh, it was good!
from there we headed to shillington...to skateaway! when chris asked stella what she wanted to do that was "special for mama" she said, "we HAVE to go roller skating!"...so we did. my parents, sisters, brothers-in-law, nephews, and friends, loren, rich, milja and iona all joined us! hilariously fun. (and kinda good in the workout way) SO memorable. we ended up back at my sister, lura's house for pizza, cupcakes and icecream...and gifts! can it get better? oh yes it can...in addition to some girly gifts from my sister and a neti pot from loren and rich, my parents, sister, husband and in-laws all went in on this for me:

a zojirushi home bakery supreme! holy cow! all ingredients are in now for honey wheat bread now, timer set to have freshly baked bread at 6:30am! oh yes!! this thing is amazing...says it can bake all sorts of breads, prepare doughs, create a sourdough starter/bread, make jam, make a meatloaf miracle (love that name), and create your own recipes. this is ridiculously exciting for me!

i am a blessed woman!

so...what a weekend! and i do have some photos for sharing...but will have to wait on them, as it is getting late! however, dear friends, our family has committed to something BIG this week.

we are having a Media-Free Week. no tv. no dvds. no videos. no computer(gulp). no blogs/blogging. no googling. no facebooking(like i do it anyway!) we need to reclaim some peace and quiet in our lives, so this is a big step towards that. we'll see if chris and i can agree to possibly on posting photos of the weekend...but i can't promise it! i do have to much to catch up on, too...some sad, some wonderful...but it will all wait until after next sunday. so, thank you all for the well-wishing on this day, and i hope you have a lovely week. we'll be eating lots of bread. and maybe some jam. and possibly a meatloaf miracle. i'll let you know. next week.