Nameless Cake recipe

Nameless Cake

3/4 cup Shortening (if you want it fluffy) or
3/4 cup Oil (if you want it heavy) I use the oil!
3 Eggs
1 1/2 cups Sugar
2 cups Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
3/4 tsp Nutmeg
1 tsp Cinnamon
2 Tbsp Cocoa
1 tsp Vanilla
1 tsp Lemon
3/4 cup Milk
1 Tbsp Vinegar

Mix together until creamy. Pour into a greased cake pan. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Frosting

4-5 Tbsp Butter (softened)
1 Egg Yolk
1 1/2 Tbsp Cocoa
1 Tbsp Cinnamon
3 cups Powdered Sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp Hot Water

Cream together. (I added an extra Tbsp of water to help it mix)
Note - Pat prefers the frosting to have less Cocoa, so I make it with 1 1/2 Tbsp Cinnamon and 1 Tbsp Cocoa. But either way it still tastes great!

Birthday Festivities!!

We started out celebrating Pat's birthday on Wednesday night by going to Cold Stone and getting some ice cream with the kids. Here he is enjoying his Irish Cream w/ Cookie Dough & Caramel

Xander and his Cotton Candy Ice Cream
Mara and her Strawberry Ice Cream (she had to get it because it was pink!)
I got my normal Chocolate w/ brownies & caramel.
I love Cold Stone!!!


On Thursday, Pat's actual birthday, the kids and I got some balloons and headed over to AFJH to surprise Pat. It was an A-day and I knew he would have his prep hour, and that we wouldn't be interrupting much :)

Happy Birthday Daddy!!

Right after we got home I made Pat's favorite cake "Nameless Cake". It's one that his mom makes and most of the Tolman family Loves this cake. Sad to say I only make this cake for his birthday, he loves it so much I should make it more often. (Don't worry, I'll post the recipe)

Xander HAD to lick the beater when I was done making the frosting!!

Oh how he loves frosting!!

Mara sneaked a sucker while I was making the frosting. Once she got to the gum in the middle she was done and threw it away!! So silly!!

We then took the cake to RC Willey, since Pat had to work that night too. He was kind enough to share with his co-workers, but I took about 1/2 of the cake home for safe keeping.

This is the AWESOME shirt that I got him!!!

(It's from Battlestar Galactica)

Friday Pat took work off so he was home by 4:00, after school was over. The kids & I had gone to the Library earlier and they wanted Pat to read them one of the books they picked out, A Creepy Countdown. For some reason Xander loves to get books about Halloween. Probably because his birthday is in October.

We were able to go out to dinner at Yamato without the kids.

Thanks again Mom!! This is Pat's favorite restaurant. They have great food and great service. I love their Meso Soup(sp?), and the salad dressing is my favorite. This is definitely a place that we don't go to very often, but we've decided that we need to go more. Next time we'll call you Susan, so you can Kenny can come too. (They love this place too!)

After dinner we went to the new Cinemark Theater at University Mall and saw PUSH!! It was a great movie and very entertaining!! I liked it alot!!

It was nice to celebrate his birthday over the course of a few days. We will be having my family February birthday stuff in a few weeks, so he'll get more then too!! Happy Birthday honey, I hope you had a great day!

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!!

Today my wonderful Husband turns 28!!! I can't believe that we are this old! I decided to get right in line with things that I have seen other bloggers do and make a list of the things I love about him! So here we go!!

1. I love his passion for our family.


2. I love his sense of humor. He can always make me laugh!


3. He works hard at all he does.


4. He loves to watch movies! (as do I)


5. He loves toys of all sorts and has an awesome blog about them all!!


6. He is a kid at heart. And that is why he is so good with kids.


7. He's going to be a great teacher.


8. He is always so concerned about me and what's going on in my head!


9. He loves his family and is always willing to help them out.


10. He is a Sci-Fi geek like me! That's probably why we bonded so easily!


11. He always knows how to talk to our kids and explain things in terms that they understand.


12. He is a very organized person, and I'm still learning from his example.


13. He loves to sing in the car and make up words to the songs. It gets us all laughing.


14. He is the ultimate collector and has taught Xander to appreciate things in their package!


15. He has a love of reading, especially if it's a Star Wars book :)
    
16. He has a "remember brain" as Xander would say. He's able to remember details that I overlook.


17. He loves his children and they are always excited to see him!!


18. He doesn't like chocolate, so there is always some for me :)


19. He has a love of learning, I know he will pass that on to his students.


20. I love the way he makes me feel.


21. I know that he truly loves me.


22. I love his smile and the funny faces that he makes :)


23. He is always there to talk me out of things that I want to buy that are so not practical!


24. He is a great support to me and always reminds me of what I need to be doing.


25. I love how secure and safe I feel in his arms.


26. I love that we share the same ideas for our future.


27. I love that he is my husband for eternity :)


28. I just flat out love him!!

I love you honey!!

Happy Birthday!!!

Catching Up

It's been about a week & 1/2 since I last blogged. I guess I felt like there was really nothing to blog about. Yes, I have been in a rut and just "going through the motions" and I'm trying to work through it all. It's just hard with Pat being gone so much. I think the kids are getting used to it, sadly. Even though I get to see him at night, I still miss him. I am grateful that we live with my mom, because at least she can help me team up against the kids at the end of the day when I am ready to be done. I am truly thankful for all she does for me and I don't tell her enough. Now we are at the beginning of week 4 and have 7 more to go. I have been making more of an effort to visit Pat at work in the evenings, at least once a week. Although it's always a short trip, it does us all some good. I even went in last Saturday and was able to take him home with me!!! (He wasn't feeling good and he only had 2 or so hours left in his shift, so his manager sent him home) I love my husband for all he does and the sacrifices that he is making these few months.I am also realizing that I'm not taking that many pictures, hence the lack of blogging. But here's what's been going on lately.

Surprisingly, I painted Mara's fingernails for the very first time on the 23rd. I painted her toes too. She was very happy as you can see!

I guess Mara really isn't that ready to stop napping. Ever since we put her in a toddler bed, I haven't actually put her down for a nap (just because she wouldn't stay). But if I set her up in my mom's room with a movie, more often then not she will fall asleep! This is my favorite, because she curled up at the end of the bed to be a little closer to the TV!
Xander has been wanting to take pictures with the camera, so before I let him I had to take a picture of us together. I love my little boy!
Xander has been bringing home books from school and has started reading!!!!! It's so awesome!!! He totally picks out words in everyday things and loves to read his books. He had to read one of his books while eating breakfast. And just for the record Xander has to eat "a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut in half" every morning. And most days he will ask for one at lunch too!! I keep telling him he will turn into a PB&J sandwich, but he doesn't believe me!
Last week I was having a bout of "slow computer" so I decided to use my mom's new laptop. I only needed it for about 5-10 minutes (so I could change my background on the blog), so I stayed in her room to do it. Sure enough Mara found me and curled up in my lap. While I was working on the computer I just played with her hair, and once I was done I realized that she had fallen asleep. Xander found me and he was able to get the camera and take a few pictures for me! It's so nice that he's old enough to do little things for me :)
I do have to clarify: It was 2 in the afternoon and I do get my children dressed every morning. But Mara always seems to change back into her nightgown. She doesn't really like to wear real clothes so she is usually in a nightgown or dress ups! What a girl!!!!!
A close up.
On Friday Karri came over and we had dinner and just hung out. Mara decided that she wanted to get a dress from her room. I told Karri that she could wear whatever she wanted that was hanging in her closet, and this is what she picked out!!!! This dress is WAY too big for her, but I love that she wanted to wear it! This dress was made by my cousin AnnaLisa for my wedding. My younger cousin McKenzie, who I believe was about 6 at the time, was my little "flower girl". My Aunt Laurie found the dress about 6 months ago and gave it to me and it's just been hanging in Mara's closet ever since. Now the cutest thing about this is that when I told Mara about the history of the dress and that it was for my wedding, she got really excited, said something to me about "mom and dad at the temple" and then had the sweetest look on her face and said "Thank you Mom!" and gave me a big hug!! It was like she thought the dress was made just for her! I can't wait until she is old enough to really wear it :)


As many of you know, Xander loves LEGO's!!! He has started to build little things, you can call them "weapons", to wear. He has one that he can put his finger's through and hold on to it. This particular one goes over his wrist! He is such a boy and I love his imagination :)

This is a project that I have been wanting to do for some time. Almost 2 years ago I made a glass block with a heart on it during an Enrichment night. It's been in our room ever since. Then this past December I made a glass block Nativity! I have always wanted something for my house that represents each month of the year and I finally did it!! All thanks to my sister-in-law Liza!!! She is a demonstrator for a company called Uppercase Living and she was doing an order and gave me a discount on it, so naturally I jumped at the chance and got the vinyl designs that I have been looking at for over a year :) They came in less then 3 days and I went and got my blocks and ribbon and put them all together!! I love that it's finally done (well almost, I don't have ribbon for 2 blocks) Now all I need is the house to put them in! At least my mom is going to let me display them in the living room or kitchen! :)

January - February - March

April - May/June - July

August/September - October - November

December

I guess all in all it's been a good week and a half! Now all I really need to do is work on my scrapbook!! And FYI: I can wear a real shoe now (after 4 weeks) and my toe only hurts when it gets bumped or I push off on it. Now I just have to wait another 4 weeks until the x-ray. I hope it's healed right!

Joss says it best....

Every single night, the same arrangment

I go out and fight the fight

Still I always feel this strange estrangement,

Nothing here is real, nothing here is right.

I've been making shows of trading blows

Just hoping no one knows

That I've been going through the motions,

Walking through the part,

Nothing seems to penetrate my - Heart.

I was always brave and kind of righteous,

Now I find I'm wavering.

Crawl out of your grave, you find this fight

Just doesn't mean a thing

(She ain't got that swing.)

Thanks for noticing

(She does pretty well with fiends from Hell

But lately we can tell

That she's just going through the motions

Faking it somehow.)

(She's not even half the girl she... owww!)

Will I stay this way forever?

Sleepwalk through my life's endeavor?

(How can I repay -) Whatever!

I don't want to be

Going through the motions,

Losing all my drive.

I can't even see

If this is really me

And I just want to be -

Alive!

This is how I have been feeling lately. I'm hoping it will end soon. I just love the words of Joss Whedon and really connect with them.

200 posts and I'm complete!!

This is my 200th post!!!

Wow! I can't believe it and I haven't even been blogging for 2 years yet!

Anyway, I finally got the last of my Indiana Jones Adventure Heroes from The Last Crusade movie on Tuesday!!! I debated whether or not to open them, and knew that I needed to.

So here we have:

Col. Vogel & Grail Knight Indiana Jones & Elsa Schneider

Indiana Jones & Henry Jones Sr.
Now I'm complete and no longer have to worry about trying to find them. I think this all stemmed from wanting a little Harrison Ford. I have a Han Solo key chain and was quite content with that. But when I saw the Indy Heroes I just had to have them!

On a more personal note, Pat taught his first lesson yesterday and it went great!! He is teaching a World Civilizations & Geography class 5 different times (A1, B1, B2, B3, & B4). He likes it because he only has to prepare a lesson for every other day. We are nearing the end of week 2 of the student teaching and still surviving! I just need to work on my patience with the kids and give myself some time outs when needed.

I'm also wanting to finish some projects during this time, like working on my scrapbook! I am so far behind and I know if I just devote a few weeks and can get caught up. I have also been working on a project with my grandma's pictures. Her film camera recently died and we gave her Karri's old Digital Camera as a replacement. I don't know if she really likes it yet, because she still passes off the camera for us to take pictures for her. With all this change, I decided to get her pictures from her and organize them a bit in order of years and into nice photo boxes (this is more for me I guess, then for her). I am also collecting all of her negatives and am going to get them put on CD's. So far I think I have everything from 2000 until now. And I found a whole bunch of negatives from the 90's too. But the best find so far was a whole role of negatives from December of 1980. They are, I think professional, family pictures of the whole Ramey Clan (minus me, I was in utero). It was so crazy to find them and I'm excited to get them scanned. I have also found some old slides too! I can't wait until I'm all done, it will be great to have them all digital. I'm sure there are a bunch more pictures stowed away somewhere in her house, but this is a great start. She also used to have a Polaroid camera when I was a baby, so I know there are a ton of those to find and scan too! Wish me luck!!

Ever since I signed up for Bloggled, I have looked at my blog in a different way. This is really my journal, and I'm glad that I'm able to express myself here. So I will probably be writing things down more for my purposes, then for the purpose of sharing, so you are welcome to skim over the text if I'm boring you! :)

A First for Xander & Mara

Last night Xander had his first sleep over!!!

He slept over at Max's house and was so excited for it! Since there was no school today and Brent & Lisa were over last night, they just took him home with them! I haven't heard yet how it went, but I'm sure he had a great time. Meanwhile back at home Mara didn't have the best night. Usually when we put the kids to bed Mara will stay in her bed and go to sleep really well. But last night within a few minutes of closing her door she was up! First she said she needed to go potty, which she tried, but nothing happened. So we got her back in bed, then another few minutes went by and she was up again. When I put her back to bed she said "I want Xander to get in bed!" "He need come home and get in bed". I didn't think that him being gone would bother her so much. We were able to put her in bed again, and we started watching some TV from this past week on our DVR. Sure enough within 5 minutes she was up AGAIN!!! We let her sit with us for a bit, then decided to let her sleep in Xander's bed. She was happy about that and went down pretty good. She did get up in the middle of the night, saying she was scared, but after a few minutes in bed with us she started to fall asleep, so I put her back in bed. She was good and slept until 8 or so.

This was just an interesting experience for me. I didn't think that she would have acted like this, but it makes sense. Xander & Mara have been sharing a room since Mara was 3 or 4 months old, so it's very much a comfort thing for Mara to have Xander there with her. No wonder she's been so great in her toddler bed. I just hope that all went well with the sleep over and I look forward to stories and pictures :)

On anther note: My sister Karri gave Mara a Princess calendar last night and it had paper dolls with vinyl accessories. She and Conli were playing with them alot last night. Mara got them out this morning and decided that she wanted to put on a puppet show for me. So she got a chair behind the couch and told me to sit down and watch. She was being so cute!! I took 2 videos and was able to post 1. The second one is my favorite, but it was too big for blogger :(

It's just amazing the imagination of a 2 year old! ENJOY!

I just love how she says "Go to the Ball"

While Daddy's Away....

Last Saturday we enjoyed a little time with Pat before work and played Rock Band. (This is truly a new obsession of ours) Mara decided that she wanted to play the drums too, so she pulled all the stools out from under the counter and got a couple of pencils and played along with Pat! It was so cute!!

This is just a cute picture from Sunday night! Mara & Sawyer were just laughing with each other.

They are the best of friends!

Pat started his Student Teaching on Monday and he will be doing this for 10 weeks. I'm glad to say, we survived week 1. It's been a little tough not having him home at night, especially for the kids, but I know we can do it! I just hope all goes well with the remaining 9 weeks.
Here are some fun pics of this week.
Mara decided that she needed to rock her bear to sleep. Afterward she put her on the couch with her head on a pillow and another pillow on top of her like a blanket.
Oh how she loves her bear!
We were able to get this really cool headboard for Xander that was on clearance at RC Willey. It has shelves and even pull out drawers on the sides. When Pat was home on Wednesday night, we moved things around and got it all set up! It's really nice and going to be well loved.
Xander's Bed Before:
Xander's Bed After:
Xander really likes this Marble Works set that my mom has and we get it out every so often. Yesterday he made a really tall one. We even got video of how it works :)

I've been having a craving to play my old SEGA and got it out when we were moving things around on Wednesday. I didn't even try to play it until Thursday night and discovered that I was missing a cord. Luckily, I was able to call my cousins that live on my street and they had a cord that I could borrow. We were able to get it working and I'm realizing that these games I used to play can be fairly hard!! (Thanks again Dane & Cody for the cord)

This is Wonder Boy in Monster Land, it's fun and I let Xander play it. I have been playing Wonder Boy III (it actually has passwords to save progress!! Totally awesome!!!)

Mara actually let me do her hair fancy today!! Too bad it only lasted the afternoon!And here is my tired toddler at this very moment. She has been up since about 5:30 this morning. She wanted to watch Snow White on my mom's bed and sure enough, she fell asleep!! It's so great when that happens. I just hope she'll go to bed okay tonight!
And for my own memory: Wednesday night I had Enrichment and that is the only night of the week that Pat is home. He was a great husband and put the kids to bed while I was gone :) Well Thursday morning after Pat left for school, I am woken up by Mara, stark naked, standing next to my bed holding a nightgown. I ask her what happened and she just tells me "My bed is wet!!" So I go into her room and sure enough her bed is wet, because daddy forgot to put a diaper on her before bed time! But Mara was so cute and had taken off her wet nightgown and underwear and got a clean nightgown out of her drawer and that is what she had with her. Now we will always make sure she has a diaper on before going to sleep!