Bowling

Hannah loves to play games. Not necessarily board games but sport type games. I finally got her a t-ball set because I would catch her in the house trying to bat a foam football with a stick. She wants to play jump rope and catch, and the list goes on. I ran across a free bowling program for kids. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to see if she might enjoy it. If I was willing to make the drive she could bowl two games free every single day until sometime in September.

After lunch today we decided to give it a try. We set her up with bumpers and a ramp. Here we are watching her first shot.



The lightest ball is 6 pounds. I was glad to see that she's strong enough to pack it back and forth between the ball return and the lane.



And we watched the second shot.

She LOVED it! We were thankful to be on the other side of the bowling alley from the league players because she was squealing so loudly with delight. She was just happy to knock the pins down.

The final score of the first game. Not too bad for a three year old with bumpers and a ramp. I thought it would be easier to aim the ramp than it was. She puts a little spin on the ball when she pushes it down and you never know what's going to happen.

Then we just turned her loose for the second game. Sometimes we aimed the ramp for her but mostly she just bowled.

Helena was relatively happy with the whole experience. She tended to be bit frustrated that the balls were too heavy for her. She really wanted to play when she saw how excited Hannah was to knock the pins down.

Posing at the ramp with her ball.

The final score for her second game. She even got a strike in the first frame of this game.

And then it was all done. We will definitely be going again. She said she would even let me bowl with her next time. Can I have the bumpers too?

Helena was so happy to be back in her car seat so she could take a much needed nap.

Life With Hannah

To be honest with you life with Hannah, both girls really, is so regularly entertaining that I don't stop to write it all down. I know that in a perfect world it would all be recorded but I can't seem to get it all done.

One thing that she's been doing lately is sleeping with her Daddy's old long rife scope. She thinks it's a great toy. I know while she's trying to get to sleep she's getting up and digging though her toy basket to find something to pass the time with. I've been trying to put the word out though to the little boys in the neighborhood that she's sleeping with a gun scope and they had better watch out!

For awhile she was referring to speed bumps as "feed bunks." This provided some good laughs in the pickup. We are working on the correct name and I think she's gotten as far as "speed bunks." We're getting there. She doesn't get to see them all that often anyway. She does however know exactly what a cattle guard sounds like when you cross it.

Last Friday we decided at the last minute to go fishing. Were about two miles from the house when Hannah kept asking, "Are we going to find water out here?" I assured her that we would but we had a bit of a drive ahead of us. After a couple of miles of driving through rocks and sagebrush I heard a big sigh from the backseat and she said, "I don't think we are EVER going to find water out here." It was a pretty long drive but we eventually found our fishing spot.

Turtle Bay

I was feeling like I needed to get out of dodge so we headed to Redding, CA and Turtle Bay. We took Hannah when she was the same age Helena is now. Apparently I like this strawberry shirt because Hannah was also wearing it when she went to Turtle Bay. We'll just call it the "Turtle Bay Uniform." The first stop was the playground in Paul Bunyan's Forest Camp. We were there right as they opened and we had the playground to ourselves. Since we live out in the sticks I don't mind a little solitude.

Swinging was the first order of business...

Then we saw the butterflies

and fish.

We visited most of the rest of the park but I didn't feel like taking many pictures this time.

I thought some of the locals might appreciate this picture taken at 65 mph. Here's a picture of Shasta Lake (5/3/10). Normally you can see the red-orange "beaches" of the lake. It was so low at Thanksgiving that it almost resembled a mud puddle. It hasn't been this high in years from what I understand.

Too Cute

This morning Hannah wanted to hold Helena's hand and help her walk. I guess I forgot to make a post about her walking. She's been doing pretty well for about a month or so. For your viewing pleasure I let Hannah wear almost anything when we are at home, thus the John Deere sweatshirt, polar fleece pants, and rubber boots. Ahhh, I wish they got along this well all the time.

The Cake

I thought there might be a very minute population out there that wonders how I make the fondant cakes. I'm here to tell you that it's not rocket science and you can do it too.

I used to try to make the cake from scratch. After too many failed attempts and my realization that I really do just love a boxed cake mix, I made this cake from a box. Hannah wanted strawberry so Pillsbury it is.

I like my cakes to have a fairly flat top. I found this method for accomplishing that where you ice your cake upside down.

I always struggle with what to fill my cake with. I have been using this Swiss meringue butter cream recipe with good success. It reminds me a bit of something you get in a bakery. It has lots of butter in it too so it's just good!

So here's the beginning. I "leveled" the tops of the cakes with a bread knife in hopes of making them flat. I need a little more practice with this. Here I have begun the process of icing it and have put the filling on.


Layer number two. I used two 8 inch by three inch deep pans to bake the cake. It was at this point that I realized that this was going to be a tall cake. I'm not sure why I didn't realized this sooner. Each layer took one boxed cake mix.



Here is the cake with the sides frosted. I used a butter cream recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. In hindsight, a butter cream with Crisco in it would probably hold up better. I made this a couple of days in advance and the fondant had begun to slide down by party time.

Here's my attempt at making smooth sides. I was in a hurry and this was good enough to go under the fondant. I should have stuck it in the refrigerator for a bit or let it crust over but I didn't. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Notice it's on a turn table. It is almost necessary for this technique.

I covered a card board cake circle with the fancy schmancy foil paper in the cake decorating section, and flipped the cake right side up onto it. Fondant keeps well in the refrigerator and I made a batch about a week before I made the cake. I colored it sky blue with Wilton's food coloring gel/paste. I rolled it out and managed to get it onto the cake-a feat in and of itself.

Then I very carefully worked my way from the top down, slightly stretching the fondant over the cake to make a smooth, wrinkle free covering.

Here it is trimmed and ready to be decorated. To make the rainbow, I pressed warm rice krispies treat into a 6" pan. When it cooled I popped it out, cut it in half, frosted it with butter cream and covered it with fondant. I supported the rainbow by sticking skewers in the bottom and cutting them so they just rested on the cake circle at the bottom of the cake. This way the cake didn't have to support the weight of the rainbow.

Here it is late the night I finished it.

Here it is in all of it's glory with it's gum paste sun. I could definitely use some more practice in the gum paste department. I don't even know enough to give you any advice as far as it goes. Notice the fondant has begun to sag toward the bottom of the cake. I think Crisco butter cream would help with this, and maybe a cooler kitchen.

I can't promise to never bore you with a cake assembly post again, but I hope not to. Hopefully this answered any questions that some of you might have had. If you have any more I can try to answer them in the comments. Now go forth and make a fondant cake! Remember someone is going to eat it. It doesn't have to be perfect.

Hannah's 3rd Birthday Family Style

Hannah's birthday was on Saturday. Again the theme was rainbows. I was into making it easy on myself. We might have two parties but we are going to stick to one theme. Super Woman does not live here.

After much contemplation and picture browsing this is what I came up with for a rainbow cake.


Here's Hannah blowing out her candle. She wasn't too excited to have to get that close to the fire.

Oh, look Papa Lee turned 3 too! Hannah shares her birthday with her Papa Lee so this always makes things more fun, and gives us two cake flavors to boot.

For dinner we had Pioneer Woman's Spicy Pulled Pork, Pico de Gallo, and Guacamole. I can't seem to find those recipes online so I guess you'll have to get the cookbook if you want to make them too. We also had Mexican rice and beans. It was served with tortillas and all the fixings.

Happy Birthday Hannah! We love you.

Hannah's 3rd (Friends) Birthday Party

I decided this year that Hannah had enough friends and was old enough that she might enjoy having her friends over for a birthday party. A lot of times we have a friend or two over at a time but never a whole bunch at once. It was fun to get everyone together and play. Hannah couldn't decide between a John Deere or rainbow themed party. A few weeks ago she decided on rainbow and I made her stick with it.

I tried to think of ways to incorporate rainbows into as many things as I could. On the menu was rainbow Jello,

a rainbow fruit platter,

macaroni and cheese, and hot dogs. I thought the mommies needed a chance to have some girl food. As much as I love to have a steak, Pioneer Woman's Shrimp Pasta in a Foil Package (minus the foil package) with french bread was a nice change of pace.

And here are the cupcakes. I'm not posting these because they are my finest creation or even look remotely appetizing. I think there are a few people out there that wondered how my cupcakes turned out. So here I am baring it all. Never again will I think that I can put these five colors of the rainbow in a pastry bag, squeeze and expect a rainbow to come out. It's just not happening. If you are looking for the tie-dyed, psychedelic look this is a great way to accomplish it. Lesson learned.

Here's Hannah being shy while we sang "Happy Birthday" to her.

I think the kids had lots of fun playing. At one point they all raced into the dog kennel/calf pen to pet Sunshine. Sunshine didn't seem to mind. I think she can use all the extra love she can get.

Hannah's friends brought her lots of nice presents. She spent the afternoon going from one to the other, playing with them after everyone left. She was also very excited to give each of her friends a present too. She knows that she's not really three yet. Now, she's looking forward to the party with her granparents and family when she really gets to turn three. Oh, a week must feel like a year when you are almost three.

Please Feed Me

This is Sunshine standing at my patio as I type, waiting for her dinner time bottle. She is doing well and enjoys being our third "dog" and grazing in the lawn. Yes, this means that now there's more poop to pick up.

Mother Daughter Look-A-Like

Mother's Day is in just over a month so I thought I would do a little mother daughter look-a-like photo session. The truth of the matter is we don't really look-a-like. The labor pains and the whole bit at the hospital assured me they are mine but there's not too much resemblance. That is, except for our boots.

We had to take our boots off in the nursery at church on Sunday when I realized that our boots kind of look-a-like. If you know me very well you know that pink ranks pretty low on my list of favorite colors. Now that I have two girls, pink is becoming more tolerable.

The "matching" boots sort of happened by accident. I got mine not because I love pink. See above. But rather because they fit, were on sale, and I thought no one would ever see the tops and think I actually like pink. If you like pink I hold nothing against you it's just that it doesn't always look good on a redhead. I get to look good in colors like rust and mustard yellow...oh joy!

I did however purposely order the girls these matching boots. I knew Hannah would love the John Deere on them and Helena just gets dragged along at this point.


After all of my jabbering I really took this picture for posterity's sake. Their feet will never be this cute and small again. I want to be able to look back and remember a time when they didn't eat me out of house and home, and didn't even know to ask for the keys to the pickup.

Happy Easter!

I had intended to make several posts this week but life seemed to get in the way. So here it is in one big lump.

On Good Friday we made Pioneer Woman's Hot Cross Buns. They were quite tasty. Keep in mind prior to Friday I had never had a Hot Cross Bun, so take everything I say about them with a grain of salt. I don't have a picture but hers look much better than mine.

I had wanted to do some sort of empty tomb activity with Hannah to help her understand that Jesus has risen and the reason we celebrate Easter. I looked at a couple of different ideas and settled on this one.

We took a can of refrigerator biscuits and flattened them out. We used small ones but the larger Grands would probably have worked better. Note: We live at the end of the earth and you take what you can get. Then we brushed melted butter on them and sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar. The cinnamon represents the spices used to anoint Jesus' body before burial.


Then we placed a large marshmallow in the center of our flattened biscuit. The white marshmallow stands for Jesus and His purity and sinless life. We folded the biscuit up around the marshmallow to form a "tomb." Then we brushed them with more butter and sprinkled them with more cinnamon and sugar. The sweetness of the cinnamon and sugar represents the sweetest gift of all...the opportunity to make the choice to spend eternity with Him.


We baked our tombs for several days, or according to the directions on the package.

When we bit into the tomb it was EMPTY! "He is not here; he has risen, just as he said." Matthew 28:6

Here's a link to the written instructions we used.

This would have been a great thing to do on Easter Sunday morning but getting out the door to church is about all we can handle, let a lone trying to throw in an object lesson.

The girls in their new Easter dresses, or rather their western shirts. I'm going to boycott the whole get a new Easter dress idea. Hannah picked out two cute matching dresses for them. I had the illusion up until this morning that they would actually get to wear them for Easter. That was until I woke up. Their colds plus, snow, wind, and temperatures in the thirties forced me to regroup. Instead of new Easter dresses I think I may have to institute a new tradition. We could get new Easter sweaters. The up side of that is they would probably be on clearance. Or we could get new Easter down coats. Again I'm sure I could find a good deal on these. Or how about new Easter long johns and jeans? Again, a sale item! The dresses still have the tags on them and I'm sure sometime in July it will be warm enough to wear them. And by the way, I did finally remember to tuck Hannah's shirt in, just not before the picture.

We went to church and attended the Easter egg hunt afterwards. I'll be eternally grateful for the limit on the number of eggs that she could pick up. It was very cold and we didn't need that much candy! After church we had lunch with our family. We headed home where Papa Randy and Lynn had hidden Easter eggs. Helena was content to swing and Hannah picked up all of the eggs.

"Hmmmm....this one doesn't look like all of the others. It's gold??"

"I guess it's OK to pick up."

We had a great Easter with our family. Now if we can just get over our colds and if I can find the Easter basket with all of the candy in it we will be doing well. I'm not sure how I could misplace a basket full of chocolate but I have. Maybe it's for the best!