Funky Kim

Birthdays!

Tonight is the family birthday party.  My dad, my eldest step-son and Vincent will all celebrate tonight.  Vincent isn't aware that it's HIS turn finally!  And his actual birthday isn't until April 12th, so he will get to celebrate a lot more before he's done turning three.

Currently there's an old fashioned fudge cake in the oven.  It's one of my MIL's recipes.  I never met her, but have heard her cooking, sewing, crocheting, etc skills raved about since I married Dwaine.  Someone in Dwaine's family even called her Saint Joyce when talking with me.  Appears she did everything perfectly.  Of course, that happens when you're very loved and you die young and unexpectedly.  Anyway, after Dwaine's sister died, I inherited a big drawer of recipes from his mom and his grandmothers.  And I'm very clear that I'll make the attempt, but I'm certain that they will never taste "right" to Dwaine.  And he gets that part.  So he doesn't hold me up to anyone's cooking/baking standards but my own.

The cake will get a peanut butter frosting that his mom invented.  And after googling several peanut butter frosting recipes, I can see that it is an invention.  I hope it turns out OK.  And I can't wait to try a fudge cake with peanut butter frosting!

The other cake I'm making is my dad's favorite.  Oatmeal cake made just the way his mom used to.  (Do you see a theme here???)  Major plus about my dad's family favorite recipes is that I learned how to make them from my grandma.  So I can duplicate them precisely and they taste right and everything.  I'm jonesing for some of the frosting for this cake.  Coconut walnut yumminess!  I can't wait to lick the bowl!

Monday and it's looking a lot like Christmas

It's been snowing all day long.  It snowed all night last night, so we woke up needing to clear the cars and stomp our feet.  But it's a spring snow, so it doesn't stick to the roads, as they're still warm from day before yesterday when we broke the all time record high temperature.  Love spring!

Shopped and bought a wedding dress for Kristi today.  It could have been a much harder ordeal than it was, but I'm glad its over and done with.  Now Sarah's gone off the deep end, wanting zoot suits instead of regular tuxedos.  And those zoot suits are at least twice the cost!  Of course, I've told them what I will spend and I will stop spending once we reach that amount.  I'm just afraid we'll reach that amount long before the ceremony.

Vincent has been a trooper today.  He went wedding dress shopping for about 3 hours.  Then he went to IFA to shop for gardening stuff.  Of course, IFA also has baby ducklings and chicks and bunny rabbits to look at and hold, so it wasn't that much of a hardship there.  Then we went to Sam's Club and walked the whole place and bought more than we had planned.  We finally finished our Monday shopping/errand day at the grocery store.  We will eat for many meals now.  Life is good.