Weekend Reflections

I absolutely had no time to blog on Saturday, so I decided to wait until today and do my first edition of "Weekend Reflection". On Saturday morning, my husband ran 16 miles with Doyle, his friend and fellow coach. Yes, you read correctly-16 miles! They're training for the Little Rock Marathon on March 2. Anyway, he didn't get home from his run until after 9:30 Saturday morning, so we kind of just laid around until mid-morning. Leslie and Zach (sister and future brother-in-law) were wedding cake testing in Russellville, so we decided to go eat lunch with them and see the new house that they have rented. We also went to Lowe's and Hobby Lobby...great adventures! I got a new front door mat that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! When we got home, I had to go to WalMart and get ingredients for Amanda's (sister in law) birthday cake....more on that later. After I got home from WalMart, we took Paige bowling with us. We met up with another couple and had a blast! We came home and crashed after the eventful bowling. I must add, however, that I beat my loving, humble husband in both games! Bowling is the one game/sport that I am a little bit better than him. He will just say that he had an off night and couldn't find a bowling ball that suited him, but I know better!

We woke up this morning and got ready for church, attended Sunday School, and came on home. I had a cake to bake...or more like 2 cakes to bake! My mom got me the original Betty Crocker red and white cookbook for Christmas and ever since I've been wanting to try my hand at baking a cake completely from scratch. Amanda's favorite cake is plain white cake with buttercream frosting, so I decided to give it a whirl. The cake part has never been my downfall...it's that frosting that gives me fits. I've attempted several times before and always come up with runny, grainy looking frosting. I had a new recipe for the frosting today, too. I can say that I had a few moments of insanity while trying to cool and frost the cakes, but all in all, the whole process was a HUGE success! I have finally found a buttercream frosting recipe that works! I even got creative and used a frosting tip to make the cake look pretty, in addition to some gerber daisies and wired ribbon for accent. Here's some pictures of the finished products ( I made a 2 layer round cake and a sheet cake).

Amanda's Birthday Cake-aerial view

Side view of cake

Sheet Cake

I'm glad to be resting and relaxing now! Paige is asleep, the kitchen is cleaned up, and Stephen even cleaned up Paige's playroom for me! I'm thinking a hot bubble bath is in order tonight...we'll see how that goes. I'm also looking forward to not going to school tomorrow...only 2 days in the school week for me!