HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!!!

We celebrated 3 Birthdays last night! Jess, Becky and I all have birthdays within an 8 day window, so this year we decided to have a triple birthday dinner. We had steak, garlic mashed potatoes, broccoli, veggie plate, fruit salad and rolls....and then we topped it off with 3 different desserts. Becky requested Cheesecake, Jesse wanted Apple Pie Ice Cream  and  I, of course wanted Chocolate Cake. 

This cake is AWESOME. Ever heard of "Wacky Cake"? This is the Dark Chocolate version made with Dark Cocoa. It's heavenly...not too sweet and oh so good. 

We opened presents and here is a sampling of what we go. I requested a waving iron for my hair....what do you think? I kind of like it....Jesse pointed out that the ends need to be curled so they blend in and don't just look straight. I agree....

Jesse got a hammock....he's been looking for one for a couple of weeks now and I a think he likes this one. Alex and Breanne were having fun with it! 

Jesse gave Becky a Samsung Galaxy tablet for her birthday. She loves it! She is teaching Jacob how to play chess....

We finished out the night staying up late and playing Shanghai and Settlers. It was really fun!

Spudnuts

I have often heard my parents talk about "Spudnuts" and how good they were.....what are they? A raised doughnut that has mashed potato in it....hence the "spud".  So, after church yesterday I decided, on a whim, to try to make some.  I found this Spudnut recipe online, made up the dough, and then enlisted my brother Jesse to fry them up. They were surprisingly good! The potato makes them light and airy and they tasted very similar to a crispy cream. 

The recipe said it made 4 dozen....and truly, it does...we got tired of frying doughnuts after a few dozen and decided to make the rest of the dough into cinnamon rolls.  We had way too many sweets in the house after that baking escapade, so I took doughnuts and cinnamon rolls around to some to friends and neighbors last night, which left us with only a few more doughnuts to eat today. I have to say that they are not as good when they are a day old.  The cinnamon rolls, however are still delicious. 

I've decided that I really like what potato does to the texture of bread. I recently added potato flakes to whole wheat rolls and the result was an nice, airy texture that you wouldn't expect from whole wheat.  Next time you make bread dough, you should throw in some potato flakes and see what happens! You might like what you get...

Quilt #1 2012

For Christmas, I made my dad a quilt out of my favorite blue and white fabric from my stash. I made a similar quilt for a friend a few weeks before Christmas and my dad kept complaining that I was giving it away, so I decided to make one just for him. There are quite a few floral prints, but my dad loves flowers, so I thought, why not? Flowers can be manly, right? Here is the finished project! 

Happy Halloween!!!

This week, I set a goal to finish my Halloween quilt before Halloween.  I made the quilt last year, but never quilted it.....so, this week, Google and I figured out how to free motion quilt on my mom's sewing machine.  I started with a couple of practice pot holders.......

Neither of them are perfect, but they helped me get a feel for how to move the fabric around and create the stippling effect.....So, I decided to go ahead and machine quilt my Halloween quilt...... it took about 3 1/2 hours of to do all of the quilting.  I finished the binding about an hour ago......and it's still the 31st! Goal achieved!  YAY!!!!  Here is the finished product....

I have decided that I LOVE machine quilting.  It really is fun and I can't wait to do more of it!!! Happy, Happy Halloween! 

A Day In the Life......

Some of you may wonder what on earth a 30 year-old, single, youngish woman who is self-employed and living with her parents does with all of her spare time.....because naturally, she would have scads of free time...right?  Well, just in case you were wondering, here's what I did today (The jam and jewelry was all done by tag teaming it with Mom) ....

Number of.......

• Earrings made and finished for upcoming craft show:   11
• Necklaces made and finished :  5
• Zipper Pulls made and finished:   24
• Pints of Peach Jam cooked down and bottled:   10
• Voice Lessons Taught:   2
• Lawns Mowed:   2 big, 3 little
• Partially decomposed, gnawed off Rabbit leg cleaned off the lawn and disposed of during the mowing process (ew, gross, gag!): 1
• Blog Posts: 2

Just another day in the life...I guess when you write it all out it doesn't look like alot, but when you add up the time, it really is......and tomorrow we'll be just as busy....Goodnight!

Wire Wrapping

This post is for my sister Sarah. Here is your personal wire wrapping picture tutorial without writing out explanations, because I am going to call you and explain......and there's not time to type it all out....  :)

Craft Show

Mom and I did a craft show this weekend. I thought I'd post a couple of pictures of our booth since none of the family ever gets to see what those booths look like.  So, here it is.  See something you want???? Let us know because if it doesn't sell, you will most likely be getting it for Christmas!