Pumkin Whoopie Pies

Today at preschool we used paints, so of course, that means spreading newspapers down...EVERYWHERE! Ha! In the process I just happened to see this yummy recipe on one of the newspapers and had to cut it out and make it tonight! It is fall, it is pumpkin season! My daughter helped me make them. She thought they were pretty tasty.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

2 c. brown sugar
1 c. vegetable oil
1 1/2 c. fresh pumpkin
1 t. vanilla
2 eggs
3 c. flour
1 t. salt
1/2 t. ginger
1 t. baking soda
1 1/2 t. cloves
1 1/2 t. cinnamon
1 t. baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir together brown sugar, oil, pumpkin, vanilla, and eggs. Then blend in four, salt, ginger, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon and baking powder. Stir all ingredients until batter is smooth. Drop by heaping teaspoons onto lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. Spread icing between two cookies and press together like a sandwich.

Icing
2 t. vanilla
4 T. flour
2 egg whites, unbeaten
2 T. milk
1 1/2 c. shortening
4 c. (1 lb.) confectioner's sugar

Stir all ingredients together until smooth.

50th Wedding Anniverary

The thing that has been consuming my time is over. We celebrated my parent's 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday. Much time over the past few weeks was dedicated to cleaning and preparation. I decided I would take on the cake. I have really enjoyed making Peanut's past 2 birthday cakes so I thought I could handle it. I also did it out of honor to my mom who used to make cakes for many family celebrations. A week ago I made GOBS of drop flowers out of Royal Meringue Icing. This type of icing is best because as they dry, they become very hard and won't break. I chose to use yellow and pale blue for the colors. Yellow was our theme color for this golden anniversary and blue was the color my mom used for her maid of honor's dress.

Thursday night I spent the evening baking GOBS of cake. I made two huge sheet cakes and 2 heart cakes. I knew right away that I wanted to use the Lady Baltimore Cake recipe. A friend of mine made it for one of my baby showers and it was soooo yummy. It was almond flavoring in it and is so wonderful. I will add the recipe at the bottom. I also made Lemon Curd to use as a filling for the sheet cake and Buttercream Icing for the cakes.

On Friday we took our cakes to Gigi's and I worked all afternoon and evening decorating them. My beautiful 2 year old daugther only took one swipe out of one of them after I had finished icing it. Thankfully it was not after I had finished decorating it, so it was easy to fix.

I am happy with how they turned out. They were simple but nice. I do need to practice my writing skills with frosting. My hand gets so shaky. I had to scrape the letters off a few times.
The decorations all were perfect. I dug out my mother's wedding dress so we could put it out on display and all of their wedding cards. While digging I found a wedding book that my mom had written the name of their wedding songs in. My techie hubby scanned a GOB of pictures and found the songs to use as background music for a video. It was the hit of the party...even more than my cake! Ha! He did a great job. The songs he used were "Because", "I Love You Truly", and "The Lord's Prayer". We needed one more song, so we chose "Love Me Tender" by Elvis, one of my mom's favorite songs.

We also had awnings set up in the yard with tables and chairs underneath for people to enjoy the gorgeous weather. We used gold paper to wrap the tables and white lights. There were also a GOB of mums sitting all over. It was so pretty. My mother-in-law made a great quilt that guests signed for my parents.

We served yummy food that my aunts and cousins helped with. There was cheesy dip with nacho chips, broccoli salad, ham salad on homemade sourdough rolls, potato casserole, cake, homemade cream cheese mints, nuts, and punch. It was all really good and we had plenty!

I am so thankful that it all went so well. It was a small party with close friends and family due to my mother's battle with Alzheimer's. My dad seemed to get more excited as it drew closer and really enjoyed himself during it all. I am so happy for that.

Here are a couple of pics from my parent's wedding on September 20, 1958.


Lady Baltimore Cake
1 3/4 c. cake flour (or regular unbleached flour)
2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
8 T. butter, softened
1 1/4 c. sugar
1/2 t. almond extract
3/4 c. milk
3 egg whites (about 1/2 c.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2-8 inch round cake pans. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together well. Beat butter and sugar together in another bowl until fluffy. Stir almond extract into milk in another bowl. Alternately add half milk mixture then half dry mixture to the butter/sugar mixture, then once again, beating well after each addition until batter is smooth.

In a separate mixing bowl, beat egg whites until they are stiff but moist. Gently stir about a third of them into the cake batter until blended. Add the rest of egg whites and carefully fold them in.

Divide between cake pans. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes in pans, then turn out onto racks to cool completely.


"I Love You Truly"

I love you truly, truly dear,
Life with its sorrow, life with its tear
Fades into dreams when I feel you are near
For I love you truly, truly dear.

Ah! Love, 'tis something to feel your kind hand
Ah! Yes, 'tis something by your side to stand;
Gone is the sorrow, gone doubt and fear,
For you love me truly, truly dear.

What a perfect song for then and especially now for my parents.

The Big Project

I think I have kept you in suspense long enough about what my newest "big" project is. I have been working away on it for about 10 weeks now. I wanted to keep it under wraps for a bit before I told you about it. Unfortunately it is not quite complete yet. It will most likely take me until spring to finish but it will be WELL worth the wait. Trust me. But even though it is not totally complete, I wanted to give you a little peak of what I am working on.















Surprise!!! We have known for like 8 weeks! Things are going really well. Looks like our big project will be completed around April 10, 2009.

I am Loved

I miss my blogging time. With work starting back it just seems life is busy. The extra time I had over the summer is now filled with lesson planning and preschool administering. I have things to tell you about though. Just be patient. They will come. My family blog takes priority when I do have time to blog, so I am getting some blogging done every few weeks. Ha!

I do have to tell you that there seems to be a new man in my life who loves me dearly. :) He is only 3 but he has great taste! Last Thursday, our 2nd day of class together, one of the little boys arrived and promptly said, "Mrs. ____ , I love you!" Then today his grandmother told me that over the weekend he was playing, stopped, looked at her and said, "Grandma, I love Mrs. _____." My teaching assistant thinks he is just trying to get some brownie points with his new teacher! Haha!

And I have one little girl in my class this year that really reminds me of my own beautiful little girl. On the first day of class I was watching and thinking about the similarities. Not 10 minutes later my assistant said, "So and so sure reminds me of your daughter!" Needless to say this little girl is beautiful but I think mine is the most beautiful one in the world!

This afternoon as I was preparing for a meeting at work, I thought how blessed I am to have this job. I love it. I feel more in tune with it this year. I love my new students so much already and have only had them for 3 class sessions. I only have one crier, but she only cries for a short time! It's going to be a good year!

Love It!

I really enjoy Feist alot and discovered she was on Sesame Street! This is great! Hope you enjoy counting to 4! (Remember to go down to the bottom first to pause my playlist.)

Frazzled

I am still here. I am so sorry that I haven't posted anything lately. I have been completely swamped. I am a preschool teacher and administrator and am in the midst of getting our school year up and running. I can not believe that it is time once again for it all to begin. Yesterday and this evening we have been having our orientation meetings, so I get to meet all the fresh faced little 3 year olds that will be in my class this year. They are so precious! I can not wait to get to know each of them. I really do count it as an honor to have this position. These are the beginnings of their long educational roads. BUTTTT there is much to prepare so I have been so busy with that. We currently only have just a few spots left in the preschool which has classes for 3, 4 and 5 year olds. It was so exciting to see the spots fill up this spring and summer. We must be doing something right! The bulletin boards are up and lesson plans are rolling. Wow! I can not do it alone though. I have a great staff who is always ready to jump in and help. They are amazing.

I am also trying desperately to help my mother-in-law as she prepares to have a booth in a VERY large festival here in our community. She is up to her neck in quilts and binding right now. I have made toddler aprons, baskets, and a few totes for her to sell. I am excited to see how it goes for her. My sister-in-law has also made some pillows and aprons for her to put in her booth too. Aprons are pretty trendy right now, so we'll see. It has been fun. I do feel bad as I have been so busy with preschool that I haven't been sewing like I had been. Rosie hasn't seen much action these past few days. (That is my sewing machine, in case you were wondering.)

And there are tomatoes....lots of tomatoes in my fridge. That means that I have to make sauce this week! Oh my! Oh dear! That will probably be my next blog....roasted tomato sauce.

I am also still working on my big secret project. This with everything else going on has made me very worn out! I hope to share this project with you really soon. Let me get into preschool gear and then hopefully soon. Preschool actually starts next Tuesday. Bring on the kiddos!

I'm thinking about showing you some of the fun things that I do for my job which I don't really think of as a job. It's fun! :) But it is a big part of my life...so we'll see.

And lastly...my hubby is a music FREAK! If you know him, you know this is an understatement. He runs the blog/label Chasing Lions. He lives, breathes, and eats music, but not all kinds. He is very particular...a music snob, some might even say. :) Due to his music blog he is ALWAYS getting cd's in the mail. He introduced me to an artist that I have really enjoyed. Her name is Jonatha Brooks. I really like her stuff and her sound. I think I am hooked. There is one song that he had me listen to in particular and it made me cry like a baby because it was about babies. I wanted to share it with you.

Sweetest Angel

Every night about eight o'clock
I wind the stem of my little clock
And when I look in the crystal glass
I see a lot of faces pass
Of those I knew
And those I know
And you now coming
And you to go

Here's a word I'd like to whisper
And I'd like to have you listen

All this world is made of love
You are fresh from heaven above
You're the sweetest angel in this world
You're the sweetest angel in this world
You're the sweetest angel in this world
You're the sweetest angel

When I hold you by your hand
I'm in my happy promised land
When I kiss you in the dark
I'm just happy as a lark
So let me come as close as I can
And lay me down beside you

Here's a word I'd like to whisper
And I'd like to have you listen

All this world is made of love
You are fresh from heaven above
You're the sweetest angel in this world
You're the sweetest angel in this world
You're the sweetest angel in this world
You're the sweetest angel

So let me come as close as I can
Let me bring my scattered pages
Let me lay down here beside you
Tonight, and I will whisper

All this world is made of love
You are fresh from heaven above
You're the sweetest angel in this world
You're the sweetest angel in this world
You're the sweetest angel in this world
You're the sweetest angel

And this is my sweetest angel. I love her more than I even know.

Random FYI Meme

Ok, ok...I'm still here. I haven't been making much lately. I am working on some more of those aprons like I made for Peanut's birthday. I will put up some pics when I get a batch made. I did get tagged by my "young" (that's an inside joke, sorry!) friend at Mommie Daze. So here you go. Hope this tides you over.

Rules Once Tagged:

1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog (copy and paste 1-6).
3) Write 6 random things about yourself (see below).
4) Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.
5) Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6) Let the tagger (who tagged you) know when your post is up.

Random FYI:

1. I can not, I repeat can NOT go to bed until all my daughter's toys are put away nicely and my kitchen is in decent shape. If I come down in the morning and see chaos, my day starts on the wrong foot.

2. BUTTTT there is always clean laundry sitting in my dryer from a few days ago.

3. I claim to love scrapbooking, but I haven't scrapped since my daughter was a few months old. I hate getting everything out, only to have to put it away again at the end of the night (refer to #1 for reason as to why I have to put it away).

4. I really would like to have a Greyhound someday...not a bus! A dog! They are the most gentle dogs that I have ever been around.

5. I love junk mail because you get to throw it away. You don't have to send the junk mail people any money! I love that feeling of throwing it out right away!

6. I have given up watching Oprah. She was starting to get on my nerves. I actually watched her today and I didn't enjoy it.

Those I am tagging:

1. Smiling's my Favorite

2. Home School Owls

3. Back Door

4. Musings from a Happy Housewife

5. Shannon's Little Niche on the Web

6. Rader Report

So that's that for now. I am working on a brand new project. It is going to take awhile for me to complete. I hope to let you know about it or at least give you some hints in the upcoming days.