A Little Bit of This And That Plus a Birthday!

I am still alive! Well, at least I think I am! The kids keep us pretty busy and something is always going on! As I look at the calendar, the next few months seem like they will be busier than ever! Blogging could be pretty sporadic!

The past 2 weekends have been JBQ and TBQ State competitions. I am proud to report that our kids did really well. Our JBQ A-League team (which includes Anna and Sammy) was in a 3 way tie for second place. So it ends up that they were 4th in the gold division. That was good enough for them to go on to Regionals! Anna came in 3rd place individually! She is pretty competitive and she has worked really hard! I should also mention her teammate Tyler came in fourth! They did so well, and we are so proud of them!

The B-League team also did really well. It is an all girl team and they came in first place in the silver division. Micah and Luke are in C-League and they did awesome too! They came in first place in the gold division. Luke worked harder at the end, so he answered more questions than he has before! I believe it has help to build his confidence! He got 8th place individually and was so excited to get a trophy!

Our TBQ teams did awesome too! Rebekah's team came in first and Rebekah got First place individually! This is her Senior year, so what a wonderful way to end her TBQ career! She will be going to Regionals next month with her team. Victoria's team came in second place! So Awesome! They too, will be going to Regionals!

Matthew is on the Middle School Team and they came in First in their division. His Team will be going to Regionals as well!

So, as you can see, there are some of the things that are on our upcoming agenda, not to mention the possibility of Anna and Sammy's team, Rebekah's team, and Victoria's team advancing to Nationals! I will also have to be running our kids to practices every week for our Church's Musical. There are actually 2 different musicals for 2 different age groups. I will have 3 kids in one and 4 in the other. Their practices are on different nights, so it will be a lot of transporting going on. The performances are in August with each group having two performances each. I would also like to fit in a trip to Virginia so that I can visit my Mom and the rest of my extended family.

To add to all of that, Rebekah and Josh will be starting College in the Fall. We will have to help them get ready for that and do all the necessary preparations! I personally find having older kids a bit more challenging than the little ones!

Recently Hubby celebrated his Birthday. I made his cake this year. He pretty much said that he would like any cake except chocolate. I scoured through recipes and decided on a Caramel Cake. Looking through so many recipes on the Internet, I came to the conclusion that most of the recipes were of a yellow cake with a Caramel Frosting. So, I decided to cheat just a little!

I used a yellow cake mix and mixed it up according to the directions and then stirred in some melted butterscotch chips. Originally I made a layered cake, but evidently left the cakes in the pans too long or something. When I tried to take them out, they were completely stuck! I had sprayed the pans with PAM, so that was not the problem. In the process of trying to get them out of the pans, one of the layers broke into pieces.

Yeah, so I mixed up 2 cake mixes and stirred in some melted butterscotch chips and poured it into a large pan. I am not sure of the dimensions, but it is a lot bigger than a 13x9 pan. I thought that since it was such a large cake that I probably should double the recipe for the Frosting. Well, in all actuality it probably wasn't needed. The Frosting was sort of like fudge and in the middle it was at least as thick as the cake! It was really yummy and the kids did not complain about too much Frosting! I wish I had taken pictures after it was cut so that you could see how thick the icing was!

Happy Birthday Hubby!

Here is the Recipe for the Frosting!


Caramel Frosting From Scratch

2 sticks butter
2 cups light brown sugar
1/2 cup Pet's Evaporated Milk
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar

Melt butter and brown sugar and evaporated milk. Cook two minutes over medium heat (no longer than two minutes). Add vanilla. Remove immediately from heat. Add powdered sugar. Beat until smooth.. Will frost a three layer cake!

I found this recipe here along with a cake recipe.

Warning: It will give you a major sugar rush!



Have a Great Weekend Everyone!

 

Birthdays, Birthdays, And More Birthdays!

I am so far behind on posting about the Birthdays around here. So, I decided to put them all together in one big post.

We could pretty much have a birthday a month around here except for, four of my boys were all born in November. Faith's actual due date was in November also.

 I still have a cake for each birthday, but it is getting to be a bit much.  I have usually let each child pick out their own cake from a bakery like Walmart, but the older they get, the more they want me to bake something special.

I will start with Jeremy. His birthday is in August, but we did not get to celebrate then.  We were actually traveling to Virginia for my sister-in-law's funeral on his birthday. I told him we would make up for it sometime. Well, it took longer than expected because, between his schedule and mine, it was hard to coordinate. I finally said let's do this! I found an evening he did not have to work and planned to have his Birthday dinner and a cake. It just happened to be early November!

Jeremy requested Lasagna for dinner and a Blueberry Pound cake for his cake. I haven't made homemade lasagna for many years until we were visiting my Mom in September. My two oldest son's were not there, so they wanted me to make it again.

So, the day arrived and I worked on making the cake and making lasagna. I had the children help me clean up so we could celebrate that evening. Well, when Jeremy came home from work , he was feeling pretty sick, so he went straight to bed. When it was time for dinner, he came up and laid on the couch. He was shivering and he had a fever. He could not eat anything, he felt so bad.  So we had Jeremy's dinner and cake without him. It was a few more days before he could eat, so we saved some cake for him. I felt so bad for him!



Jeremy's Blueberry Pound cake

 Here is a picture of Jeremy from his Birthday last year. I believe this is the most recent picture I have of him.

  September:

Anna's 9th Birthday




 October:



Luke's 7th Birthday






Here are our November Birthdays:



Matthew's 13th Birthday

Timothy's 22nd Birthday (Banana Cake)

Sammy's 11th Birthday (Chocolate Mint Layer Cake)

Josh's 19th Birthday (Better Than Anything Cake)

We are done with all the Birthdays for the year except the most important one, Jesus!

JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

 

~ Hello There! ~

I am a bit behind updating on here. Life seems to keep moving so fast and sometimes I feel like I am just holding on for dear life! With 3 kids in TBQ and 4 in JBQ, that in itself can make for a busy schedule. JBQ has their meets on the first Saturday of the month and TBQ on the second.

This year I have been working on being more involved with the kids in Bible Quiz. The JBQers have practice on Sunday Mornings and so far I have never made it to a practice. The TBQers have their practice on Sunday afternoons. I have been helping out with the TBQ practices and I am learning as I go along.

My Hubby is the coordinator for JBQ at our church as well as for our part of the State. He has had me jump right in and officiate at the 2 meets we have had so far this year. The last meet I was the Quiz Master for the very first time in my life and I hope to never do that again, at least for quite a long time. I need to learn more about the rules and how things run. I am sure that the people that had to endure will agree with me!

I have been working on some different projects around here. I have needed to get some of my school things in better order, so I have been working on that. I still have a bit to do in the department.

On Saturday, Hubby and I worked on cleaning out the garage. We accomplished quite a bit and got rid of quite a lot of stuff, but we still have a ways to go. This was for two purposes. One was because it needed it badly and the other was so we could get to our Christmas Decorations. We are wanting to get lights up outside while it is still warm. In years passed we have always waited just a week too long and it was soooo cold! This year our goal is to get it done when it is warm. And no, I do not care that it is too early! Anyway, we probably won't put up our tree until after Thanksgiving.

It is such a busy season around here, so I do not know how much I will be posting. Besides Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, we have four Birthdays to celebrate in November. Having a large family sure keeps us busy in the Birthday department.

I have a couple of more posts in the works. One is sharing pictures from Faith's Birthday and the other is on all the other Birthdays that we have celebrated recently. So watch for them!

That's all for now, I just wanted to stop by and say Hi! Hopefully I will be back soon!

 

Another Birthday

As you can imagine, it seems as though there is a Birthday around here quite frequently. If you have a large family, then you totally understand! Actually, four of our children have a birthday in November. Had they all come in different months, we could have covered more months on the calendar!

I think that recently turning 46 has stirred a bit of emotions in me. I really do not fear getting older, it is not anything like that. It is just that my child bearing years are fading away. I have truly hoped that I could have one more healthy pregnancy before I am all done. I know that  could still be a possibility, and I leave it all in God's hands. He know what is best for me and my family, so I totally put my trust in Him!

Another thing that is messing with my emotions is the baby of the house is now 5! How could it be?

Now if Faith was here with us, she would be 20 months old, but she is not. I so miss having a baby around here and I miss Faith so much.

Anyway, our sweet Micah is now 5. He is a very active little boy! More active than most of any of our other boys ever were. He hardly walks anywhere, he usually RUNS! He is a lot of fun and almost always has a smile for the camera. He is a bit of a handful and probably should be a lawyer someday because he will argue his case and he will argue your case for you too! I enjoy him but he does wear me out! I must admit I do enjoy when he falls asleep at night too!

Happy Birthday Micah!

This is my absolute favorite!

Can you see a theme here? He loves all things Toy Story. I was so happy to find this Slinky Dog. He really loves him!

That is all the birthdays until next month!

 

OK, Only To Be Fair

I just recently celebrated my Birthday. Yep, another Birthday came and is now gone! At this point in my life, it would be perfectly OK with me if we just skip by my Birthday!  I am just not into it!

So, since I post pictures from everyone else's Birthday, I decided it would only be fair if I share some from mine.

For Birthdays, we usually just gather as a family for cake and presents. With 10 kids and a daughter in law, we pretty much have a big party by ourselves! It is getting a little bit more tricky these days though, with work schedules and kids away on different trips, our numbers have been down a little.

Now, on to other things that I would rather talk about!

Over the weekend, Hubby and decided it was time to  hack away cut back our butterfly bush! It was taking over. We really need to relocate it to a better spot, but my poor hubby has helped me relocate too many shrubs over the years! Actually last year we moved this particular bush because it was taking up all of the sunlight from my little Japanese Maple Tree. The butterfly bush looked really sick for a while after moving it, and we were not sure that it was going to make it! Well, it did make it and doing better than ever. This year it has grown bigger than ever and the blooms have been huge also. The only problem is that it has been hanging over our sidewalk and shading too many shrubs from the sun. So, we got a little crazy and cut away!

The bush was so full of bloom that I decided to make a bouquet out of them. As I was standing there holding the bouquet while hubby was cutting some more, I had a butterfly land on the bouquet. He kept flying around me and landing.

I felt like he was my very own pet butterfly! We also have some very beautiful blue butterflies that like to hang around our butterfly bush, but they seem a bit more shy. The scare a lot more easily, so it is hard to get a picture of them, but I will not give up!

In other news, I finally planted my flowers! Yeah, they have only been sitting around for a month waiting to be planted! They were starting to look a little sick, but most of them seem to be perking up a bit! I will post some pictures soon!

Have an Awesome Weekend!

 

Rebekah's Birthday and a Not So Bad Flop

My first daughter, and fourth child, Rebekah, just recently turned 17! Wow! Where does the time go?

The day she was born I was on cloud nine! Finally a girl after having three boys! She wore a lot of pink and headbands. I even had her ears pierced when she was 9 months old. I did not want anyone to ever mistake her for a boy! Believe it or not, I still had an older man call her a boy!

Rebekah is now a beautiful, 17 year old, young woman, inside and out! She is very hard working. She will be a senior next year and also is in TBQ (Teen Bible Quiz) and studies very hard! Her team is going to the National Competition soon! She works at Chick-fil-A to earn money for college and maybe a car. I am so proud of all her hard work, but I am especially proud of her dedication to the Lord and living her life for Him! 

Rebekah with Anna 

Happy Birthday Rebekah!

I usually order a cake from Walmart for most of the Birthdays around here. As the children have gotten older they seem to appreciate a home made cake a bit more.  Rebekah wanted a special chocolate cake, so I found this recipe.  I decided to make a white cream filling to go in the middle instead, so there would not be too much chocolate, (if there is such a thing!).

Well, things did not go as planned! About 20 minutes into baking, Luke comes in and asks "what is that horrible smell"? Chocolate Cake Baking is not supposed to smell horrible!

One minor detail that I overlooked is that I was supposed to put the batter into two 10 inch pans and not 9 inch pans. The batter was overflowing all over the oven! It was burning on the burners. Yikes!

Well, I decided to let it keep baking and see if I could salvage anything. It seemed a bit crispy on top. I decided to put in an emergency call to Leigh, Jeremy's girlfriend. She works at the Bakery at Walmart and is an amazing cake decorator. She made a beautiful cake for Rebekah.

Rebekah and Anna being very silly!

I eventually made the icing and the cream center and put the cake together.  It was falling apart a bit, and crumbs were everywhere when I put the icing on. It was a little sorry looking, but it tasted amazing!

This is their version.

Mine

Yummo!

 I will have to try it again using the right size pans! This cake was very yummy and the Chocolate Ganache Icing is almost like eating Fudge! We really enjoyed the white cream center to break it up a bit!

Have An Awesome Weekend!

 

May Happenings

Sorry I have MIA. It has been quite busy around here, so it has been hard for me to get here very often. Here is a little update on what has been happening in our World.

Our 5th born and 2nd daughter celebrated her 14th Birthday. Victoria is beautiful and very sweet and sensitive. She loves all things girly. She also does not like to have her picture taken. This was the best picture I could get!

Happy Birthday Victoria!

The Hubby and I celebrated our 26th Wedding Anniversary. We have been through a lot together, but I am so grateful that God gave me this wonderful man to be by my side through all the ups and downs.

Twenty-six Years Ago

Taken about a year ago!

Rebekah and Victoria both participate in TBQ (Teen Bible Quiz). I am so proud of all their hard work. Both of their teams went to the Regional Competition. At Regionals, Rebekah's team came in 4th. Victoria's team came in 7th. The top 5 teams are automatically qualified for Nationals. There is a certain number of teams that participate at Nationals. After all the Regional Competitions were over and some teams opted out of going to Nationals, more teams were invited. Victoria's team was one of them. So this year we have two quizzers going to Nationals.

This has been a bit of a challenge especially because the cost of going to Nationals has gone up quite a bit this year. We are hoping to do fundraisers to help offset the cost. If anyone knows of an effective way to raise money please let me know. I don't want to sell useless stuff to make a buck. I know I cannot afford to buy the stuff we all have bought to help someone out. Our group is working on doing a big yard sale and car wash.

I forgot to mention that I was able to travel with the girls to Regionals. This was my first trip with TBQ. I really enjoyed myself and hope that I get more opportunities to travel with them. It was fun being with my girls and also getting to know the others better as well. I believe it was a good break for me to be away from home for a few days. I felt a bit refreshed however exhausted (if that makes any sense) when I returned home.

My garden has been neglected so far this year. I planned on working on it this week. I still hope to get to it, but it is supposed to be hot all week long. High in the 80's. I am not a fan of the heat, but I really need to get things going. I should have made myself get out there when the weather was a bit cooler.

Last week we saw a beautiful rainbow. It was actually a double rainbow, but the second one was a little more faint.  It was raining and the sun was shining at the same time. It was quite interesting, I thought that it made for good conditions for a rainbow. A couple of minutes later Sammy looked out and saw it. Most of us went out to look at  it. It was only sprinkling at the time. Here is a picture. It doesn't do it justice one bit. You have to look closely to see the second one.

The children are working hard at their schoolwork in hopes of being done for the Summer. I too look forward to our Summer break! I think I look forward to it more than they do, but don't tell them that!

I really need to work on decluttering the house and reorganizing all of our school stuff. Sounds like I have a fun Summer planned ahead. It looks like our Summer will be very busy. Our church is doing 2 separate Musicals this year, so I will have 4 children in one for the 7-12 grades and 4 children in the other for K-6 grades. Their rehearsals are on different nights of the week. Yep, I think we are going to be a bit busy.

Well, that's all for now. Have a Happy Tuesday!

 

Birthday Season

Life is definitely starting to get a bit more busy around here. With the Holidays approaching and a Wedding in early January, I am starting to feel a bit stressed. Also while trying to prepare for all of that, we have several birthdays to celebrate. I need to start making a list of all the things I need to accomplish, so that  I can keep track of what I am doing. I would like to do all of this with great joy, but right now I am feeling stressed!  I really need to get better organized.

Birthday Season is in full swing here at our house!  November is a big month here! Four of my boys have November Birthdays and Faith also had a November due date.

We probably should just have one great big birthday party in November, but it is so hard to do, since all of the other children have their own Birthday Month. They all get their own cake. I have usually let each child pick out a cake from Walmart or Sam's Club. As they get older many of them have decided that they would rather have me bake the cake.

Matthew starts off the birthdays for November. Matthew is now 12! Wow! That is really hard for me to believe.One more year and we will have another teenager around here!

Matthew is one our Artsy children. He has always enjoyed drawing and also making crafts. He is the kind of kid that you need to save paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls for his many creations. He has recently become interested in making Videos.  He uses his younger brothers and sisters as his actors. They are so cute and imaginative! He has also made neat videos featuring each of the children. He picks out some great pictures of the kids and adds music to them,  He also adds credits at the end. It is really cute!

Next up is Timothy. Tim is now 21!  Tim is the one who I have shared before, was healed from Leukemia. God has truly touched his life and I look forward to all that is in store for Tim.

Tim is getting married at the beginning of January. He is the first of my children to get married! Naomi is his Fiance, and we are thrilled to be adding her to our family!

Tim is in his second year at Eastern Kentucky University. He also works a full time schedule at DQ. He is a really busy person right now. Naomi is graduating from Eastern in December. She is hoping to get a job after that and help Tim get through school.

This is Banana Cake that Tim requested. Not very pretty, but very Yummy!  Don't they make a beautiful couple?

Did you notice that we used the same candles for Matthew and Tim? We just reversed them! That doesn't happen very often.

Please pray that I can prioritize and get organized. I really want to enjoy these next several weeks. I do not want to be stressed, but be filled with Joy!

The LORD is my strength and my shield; 

my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. 

My heart leaps for joy

and I will give thanks to him in song.

                                         Psalm 28:7

 

Birthdays

I am a bit behind on posting about Birthdays around here. Three more birthdays have been celebrated in the last couple of months.

First off is my oldest son Jeremy. He turned 23 years old and I cannot believe it!

I had Toxemia when I was pregnant with him and was induced at 37 weeks. I was on medication that made me miserable. His delivery was a bit difficult for me and I decided that one child was all I needed! That lasted a really long time, didn't it?

The younger children think Jeremy is the Best! They look up to Him! ( Literally because he is 6'3"!) He is currently taking a break from school so he can save up some more money.


Next is Anna. My baby girl is now 8. She is quite the spunky one! I am determined that she could run this country better than anyone else! She can do anything she puts her mind to. She is in third grade and does quite well.

Anna got her ears pierced for her Birthday. She has been really wanting to get that done and since it would be one less thing to have to pick up, I gave in consented. So far, so good. She still wears the original post earrings and we clean them twice a day.



The most recent Birthday was Luke. He is now 6. Luke is in Kindergarten this year. He reminds us so much of his older brother Tim. He looks a lot like him and has a very similar personality. He can be quite charming and a real sweet heart and then he can be a real hard head! He definitely keeps us busy and entertained.



Having 10 children can keep you busy in the Birthday department. Next month we have 4 Birthdays. We usually end up getting a cake for each one, but we have considered having one great big celebration. The older kids can handle this well, but the younger ones still want their own! Oh well, it won't be all that long before they are all older and won't even care.

October 28th marks one year since we said goodbye to Faith. I am not sure what we will do to remember her. If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. It just seems impossible that it has almost been a year. I have been remembering a lot recently, about the things we were going through this time last year.I never dreamed one year later I would be blogging about losing her.

It seems as though the next couple of months are going to be quite busy. November we have four Birthdays and Thanksgiving. We are also planning a Wedding shower for my son Tim and his fiance Naomi. Then comes the month of December which is always busy with Christmas preparations. On top of that we will be preparing for Tim and Naomi's Wedding which is January 2nd. Besides all of this, we still have day to day activities that keep us quite busy anyway. I am praying for God to help us to prioritize and for us to remember to keep Him the Center of all that we do.

 

Happy Birthday To My Dear Husband

Recently there was a very Special Day at our house, or should I say my hubby had a very Special Birthday! I am not going to elaborate too much about it, but it is a Special milestone in life! Maybe you can guess from the pictures what that milestone is!

Sunday's are always very busy around here so we celebrated in the evening. After church we went out to lunch. When we were done with lunch, hubby and most of the children had to head back to church for JBQ and TBQ practice. I took the two youngest and we headed out to buy some balloons.

Taking a three year old boy and a 5 year old boy out to but balloons is a lot of fun! They enjoyed this a great deal. The lady at the store even gave them their very own balloon , which was so very nice. We also picked up a Happy Birthday banner and some party hats. The boys insisted on party hats! So we headed home to prepare for daddy to return!

The two little boys wanted to wear party hats and hide and surprise daddy when he came home. Mike and the other children didn't get back until about 5:00. Micah, the three year old didn't make until then. He ended up falling asleep. So Luke was left alone to do all the surprising.

Later in the evening we celebrated with a cake. I made him a banana cake which is a favorite of many around here. I also make homemade butter cream frosting which is so much better than coming from a can.


Me with dear hubby and Luke and Micah


Micah with his Daddy


This is Josh and Anna ( definitely two of our most dramatic children! )


Matthew


Jeremy and Leigh, Tim and Naomi, Micah, Anna, and Luke


Here Victoria, Sammy, Rebekah, and Anna

As you can see, our family is a party in itself! All of our children were here along with my oldest son's girlfriend and my second oldest son's fiance. Did I mention I am going to be a mother-in-law in January? We had fun and took lots of pictures.

Mike is not a big Birthday person, mostly I think he doesn't like the attention. I pray that he had a wonderful day! I Love you Honey!

Blessings