The Winner Is:

I sure wish I knew how to add the widget onto a blog!! I promise you a million times over that I did use Random.org.

The winner is:

The Frazee's!


CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

I will send you a message on facebook as soon as this is posted!

Pumpkin Meringues

I have always loved meringues. I think they are about my favorite cookie. They are light and airy, yet delicious no matter what your taste is, because, you can change the flavor to what ever you please. Do you love pumpkin pie? I'm sure the answer is yes. If so, you will love these!!

The main ingredient in any meringues are: egg whites, cream of tartar, sugar and a flavor of your choice.

I get so tiered of waisting the egg yolks so yesterday, I bought some egg white beaters. This was the first time I have ever used egg white beaters. I think I like them!
You beat the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt on medium speed until you have soft peaks form. I know, the soft peak is hard to see in this picture but I tried. At least you get the idea of the foaming going on here.

You will then add the sugar one tablespoon at a time. Will did an excellent job at helping me with this. It back fired on me later... stay tooned. After adding the sugar, add the pumpkin pie spice, vanilla, and any coloring if you so choose to use any. You will beat on high until stiff peaks form.

Nope, not yet. Keep beating (and push the kid away from the sink full of soapy water so he doesn't continue to add tablespoons of unwanted ingredients into the batter.) (And then drop the Tablespoon into the mixer and end up with a very bent measuring spoon.)

Those are some nice, stiff peaks!!-----
V V V V

Some, recipes have you dollop the batter onto waxed paper. I like to put them in a zip lock baggie and cut the end off. So much easier. Be sure to have the zipper completely closed so you don't have a blow out like I did... that is not so much easier.

Bake at 250* for 40-45 minutes and then turn your oven off and leave them in the oven until it is cooled. Then take out and enjoy!!

Beautiful! And delish!

Pumpkin pie meringues:

2 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a small bowl, beat egg whites, cream of tartar and salt on medium speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating on high until stiff peaks form. Add pie spice and vanilla.

Place egg white mixture in a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip. Pipe 1-1/2-in.-diameter pumpkins onto parchment paper-lined baking sheets.

Bake at 250° for 40-45 minutes or until set and dry. Turn oven off; leave meringues in oven for 1-1/2 hours.

CMA cake

Christian Motorcycle Association, is a group that rides and spreads the word of God. It's a great group of people and I happen to work with a couple of members. One of them, asked me to make this cake for a gathering they were having at Sycamore Springs. I was pretty excited about this opportunity. It is by far, the biggest cake I have made to date. My original idea was to use a cluster of trees in certain areas on the cake. Since this is my first stacked cake, I wasn't really anticipating the lack of space to put the trees. Things worked out well though as they were made of modeling chocolate, they were really easy to cut in half. I just put more buttercream on the back of the trees and attached to the cake.

This sign is made of fondant. If I had edible markers, I would have made this all edible. Since I don't, I had to use a regular marker and that is not okay to eat. The highway is also made out of fondant. I had to buy it because there is no way I would be able to get my own fondant that dark.
Chocolate rocks boarder the highway.

Overall, I'm pretty excited about how this cake turned out!

Will's 18 months!!

I nailed it on the head. After the second night of Will not wanting to sleep, I knew he had an ear infection. He couldn't have timed it any better either since yesterday was his 18 month and my 14 week pre-natal appointments. For 18 months, Wills stats are:

30.8 lbs 50-75%
35" tall- 97%

He actually measured 36" but since he was wearing shoes she took off an inch. Not that big of deal since he is that tall! This rash that he has gotten from the cloth diapers, the Dr. thought it was a yeast infection. She's the doctor, she knows best, but I still have a hard time believing that it was not due to that detergent we were using. I have 'stripped' the diapers (washed them 4-5 times until no more soap is in them and then wash a couple more times) and now waiting until his bum clears up so we can start putting those cute fuzzi butt diapers on him again. Oh, yes, we FINALLY have them all!!! Three weeks after they were due to come in, we are stalked up with diapers! These are the diapers that you do have to wash a good 4-5 times before you can use them, washing adds to the absorbency; so, they have to be washed a few more times before we can use them yet.

As for Baby #2, it's nice and healthy with a heart beat ranging in the 140s. It was nice of Baby #2 to also boost my metabolism enough to only gain a half a pound this last month. Thanks baby!!!

I have been having some CRAZY dreams lately! From being in a tornado holding onto a cow, to shooting a wolf that came into our house, to aliens looking in Wills bedroom window as I was trying to get him back to sleep. (That one, I'm not too sure it was just a dream!) I do love dreaming, its a fun time to let your imagination go wild. The fun thing about it is that you have no control over what your imagination is doing. You never know what you will remember in the morning. I look forward to bed to see what I will be dreaming next (minus aliens... truly, could have been real!).

Dennis is pretty much done chopping the corn for this year. It's been so dry the last couple of weeks to months that all the corn is ready for combining (Wills new word!). It has been nice to have him home more. We enjoy having Daddy around to tackle and play with. He just needs to get Wills swing set done so when he starts chopping again, we have something to do!!! It will get done, in time. He will be back to chopping the sorgo before we know it. It is crazy how fast time has been flying by.

Dennis asked me the other day if I had been in the garden to get any tomatoes or peppers lately. No. I'm done in the garden. I did what I wanted and now, I don't care. It took all I had to do what I did do too. I sure wish we had more corn frozen but I had absolutely no energy to do that.

I am working on a huge three tier cake for an event. I'm excited to post about it, come back tonight or tomorrow, I should have pictures posted!!!

Diaper stash... so far!

Yes, so far! I will be pretty stalked up once all of them come in but, once the baby gets here I will need to add to the stash. Probably no more than ten more and I should be good to cloth diaper two kids at the same time. That will require me to do laundry every day until baby #2 has a little larger bladder.

These are the Gro Via all-in-two diapers. They have an insert that you can just snap in and out and reuse the oh-so adorable covers. These are the inserts we do not have yet. We do have one so I know that they do take quite a bit longer to dry. The Fuzzi Bunz (look below) will air dry over night and these will take an extra day. Once we have these in, I can start doing laundry ever-other day instead of every night.

The rest of these are the Fuzzi Bunz. They are pocket diapers, so we have to stuff them. It didn't sound that appealing but I have timed how long it took me to stuff (all 6! HA!) and it took a whole 3 minutes! Do the math, 30 seconds for one stuffing. That is totally doable, even if we only had pocket diapers and had to stuff them all.

Then you see these flat rectangle orange and yellow fabric on the bottom left hand side of this picture? These are cloth wipes. Let me tell you that Will loves them! He used to squirm, and squeal and just hated the highly chemically-added wipes. They just hurt his little bottom. These cloth wipes, he just lays there and takes it. There is a spray that you spray on his hinney (its called Happy Hinney) and he loves it!

I was so excited to get a picture of Will in his new diapers that I didn't even realize my camera was on manual and way out of focus. But, here he is in his new diaper. He has now been wearing cloth diapers for long enough that if he dirties it an hour before bed, I don't want to dirty another cloth so I'll just put a sposie on him. The second it is on, he tries to take it off. It is just not as comfortable as those soft, fleece lined diapers!

So, I'll admit, we had issues with night time diapers the first night. I, like other new to cloth mamas really have no idea what to do for nights. I did buy a night time diaper that was recommended to me by the seller. This is what he looked like the first night. Blimp Butt is what I like to call it. Well, it didnt work out. I was working nights so Dennis had him and said that Will woke up at 1:30 with a soaking wet diaper. Dennis swears that Will said 'Thank you' after he changed him.

Since this night, I have discovered that the Fuzzi Bunz diapers work if I stuff them with 3 liners. It makes his butt pretty fluffy but it stays dry all night. So, no more blimp butt.


I am excited to get the rest of the diapers in and see how it all goes. So far, I'm in love. As far as diaper rashes go, the normal rash he got with the sposies has not appeared. He has however, gotten a heat rash right around all the creases on his diaper covered area. I'm not sure why this is happening but it is red with little bumps, just like a heat rash. It is even peeling a tiny bit on his thighs. The things I have yet to learn.

Thinking About a Givaway!

Some follow my blog because you are family and you love my baby, others follow my blog because I love to bake, and you love to see some of my creations. Since I have been lacking in the baking area lately, mostly because of lack of energy from baby #2, I am going to be making up for it by having a giveaway! It's not much, trust me. Nothing like the Pioneer Woman who is giving away cameras, stand mixers, and everything else very expensive that I have to save for months to purchase! It is more of a "Thank you", thanks for following my blog and reading what I have to say.

I'm going to make a few rules to enter of course. Lets hope I can figure out random.org to pick the winner!!

2 Rules are: If you aren't a follower of my blog, follow it, become a member.

Then post a comment on this post. Tell me what you do or don't like about Halloween, or give me an idea for Will's costume for Halloween!! Anything, just let me know you read my blog!

Winner will be picked on September 30th at noon, central time.

This is the little 'Thanks' that I'll be sending the winner of the giveaway. It's baking cups for 24 cupcakes with the cutest little pumpkin and owl picks for toppers. I hope you enter and good luck!

A Little Stressed?

It’s time for a little confession. This pregnancy, I have had about a million times more stress than I did with Will. I just feel as if this pregnancy is just doomed… There is not an once of me that would be surprised if I ended up on bed rest. Things are just not happening as smoothly as they did with Will. Don’t get me wrong, the baby is very health (as of the last we saw the little blob) and doing well! It’s daycare.

When I was pregnant with Will, I had called nine daycares before I got into one. I was starting to get stressed, but that is hard to do when I called all nine, in one day! That was it, one day of daycare hunting and BAM! We find one right away. With this daycare, we have been so blessed. She is a great ‘second mom’ for Will. He loves going to her house to play with her and all the other kids every day. You know you have a wonderful daycare when you drop your child off and he shuts the door on you. The first time he did this, it kind of hurt, but I thought about it and realized that it was the greatest thing, he LOVES it there. So, now I just laugh and am thankful for the fact that Will loves it.

With this pregnancy, I knew that for three days after announcing that we were expecting that we didn’t have daycare. I was relaxed about it, knowing that I was only seven weeks pregnant. After the three days, I had a wonderful surprise when picking up Will from daycare that we would be able to take the baby to her too! I was so excited! Well, things changed and the two kids that left for another daycare, hated it there and decided to come back to the place they also love. So, I was out of daycare. Back on the hunt I went.

A week or two went by where I called several daycares in town looking for two openings. I would HATE leaving our now daycare but would hate even more driving to two daycares every morning and evening. After calling half a dozen or so, I ran across one that was pretty sure that it would work out. Again, I was elated. She although, never told me it would for sure so I kept my eyes and ears peeled. I then get a message from her saying that it would not work out and that the kids also were going to stay with her. Turns out, she is now closing her daycare to work at another job. Wonderful, more parents now looking for daycare.

We fast forward a couple more weeks and we come to this last daycare. This daycare is quite different than the others. She gave me full on YES, we would be able to take Will to her. I was going to meet her this week to give her a little deposit just to ensure Wills spot for May. Again, another facebook message saying that she was going to have to decline because another family had an older child, allowing her to take two of their kids instead of my one. This again, was a week or two of me thinking we had it set in stone that daycare stressing was done with.

Crushed is an understatement to how I felt. A third daycare has now told us no. Why is it no one wants to take my baby boy? He is the most wonderful little guy there is, he is so loving, sweet, care free guy. I do know that it is not that they don’t want him. I know for a fact that his daycare now will be sad the day we do find daycare for him. If that day comes. So, I am now back on the so stressed I just want to cry boat. And, crying so much, I could float the boat! I can’t help but feel like there is just something horrible that has yet to happen with this pregnancy. Why is it that daycare is so hard to find? I know that people are looking for jobs out there, why can’t they open a daycare?

So, I end this by asking something of all of my readers. Will you please say a quick, simple little prayer for us to not only find a GREAT daycare, but also that the rest of this pregnancy will go relatively smoothly and stress free? Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, I feel like we will need all the prayers we can get.