bundts twenty-six to thirty

Here are five bundt cakes I’ve baked recently from recipes
at Mix and Match Mama.
The links below the photos will take you to their recipes.

Pink Lemonade
This cake was amazing, and very lemony. It was like eating candy, and I couldn’t even finish my piece! I found that Pillsbury makes a “Pink Lemonade” frosting in a can (got it at my Walmart).

Mississippi Mud
Mmm—my favorite of this series of five. The frosting is made of cream cheese and marshmallow cream!

Chocolate Cherry Coca-Cola
This one was really good! The recipe called for regular Coke, and grenadine to bring the cherry flavor. Instead, I just used Cherry Coke. It was a little difficult to detect the cherry flavor, but I did like the texture created by the pop.

Hazelnut Cream
If you like hazelnut creamer in your coffee, this is a cake for you! This particular recipe didn’t call for chocolate chips, but I like to throw them in there :)

Chocolate Coffee Hazelnut
We drink Folger’s hazelnut coffee every day at my house, so I had to try this flavor of cake. Delicious!

Follow this link to see the other 25 cakes I’ve made.

a big decision

Yesterday morning, Steve finished writing his last final paper. His classes for his PhD are officially over! He next will work on passing a test in August, and then he is “ABD”—All But Dissertation. For now, it is SUMMER!

In April, Steve had an interview for a TA (Teaching Assistant) job for the 2013-2014 school year. With this position, he would teach his own English classes at the university. He was a TA from 2009-2011 at his undergrad/master’s university. And for the past two years, he has been a GA (Graduate Assistant), helping out a professor with research, errands, and paperwork. For the new TA position, everyone else in his cohort was applying as well, so we were very uncertain if he was going to get it. On April 18, he opened his e-mail to:

“Congratulations! I am pleased to inform you that you have been selected for a position as a part-time temporary instructor for 6 credits for the 2013-2014 academic year!”

Steve and I were so excited!  We hugged and celebrated for a few minutes. And then Steve reread the e-mail, and saw this:

“You will be assigned all 6 credits (2 courses) in the Spring, and
no courses in the Fall.”

Our faces fell. Instead of hiring a few TAs—who would each teach four classes over a whole school year, the university split the positions in half. Everyone got a job, but for only two classes during one semester.

Steve’s job does not begin until January 27th, 2014. We were anticipating a full year job, with a doubled paycheck. Now, he won’t work, or get paid from the university for eight months. Yikes!

So we began brainstorming what we are going to do.

Steve’s side job for the past three years has been remodeling and painting. About two days a week, he drives an hour to his hometown to work. If he wants to make this his full-time job for the summer and fall, I don’t want him driving two hours round-trip, and I don’t want him gone 12 hours a day.

So we are contemplating moving to Steve’s hometown. He would still have to commute next January-May to teach his classes, but hopefully it would only be two or three days a week, and for just a few hours at a time.

We could have our parents within minutes of us, and we would have our church family there as well.

But it’s still not an easy decision. There are plusses and minuses to living in each place. We have established some roots here for two years (although shallow ones). Nolan was born here! We have made some sweet friends. I knew this was not our forever home, but I also thought we would be here for four years, instead of just two.

If we move, our next place will be our fifth address in only four years of marriage.

So we’ll keep praying for God’s direction. Our lease is up at the end of July. We still have a little bit of time to make this big decision.

chilled raspberry cheesecake

As you may have noticed, I don’t think a dessert is a dessert unless it has chocolate in it.
Raspberries + chocolate = one of my favorite combinations.

Ingredients:
1  1/2 cups vanilla wafer crumbs (45 wafers, crushed up)
1/3 cup Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
10 ounces of raspberries
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup boiling water
2 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened
1/2  cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For topping:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa
1 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
raspberries for garnish

Directions:
Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Stir together vanilla wafer crumbs, cocoa, and powdered sugar in a medium bowl. Gradually pour in the melted butter while stirring. Press the mixture onto the bottom and slightly up the side of a  9-inch springform pan. Bake for 10 minutes, and let it cool completely.

Stir the raspberries until they form almost a puree. My raspberries were a little wet after washing them, so they fell apart easily when I stirred them. Set them aside.

Fill a small bowl with the 1/2 cup of cold water. Sprinkle the envelope of gelatin over the water, and let it stand for 3-5 minutes to soften. Add the 1/2 cup of boiling water, and stir until the gelatin dissolves, and the mixture is clear.

Beat the cream cheese, granulated sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl until it is smooth. Gradually add in the raspberries and the gelatin, mixing thoroughly. Pour into the baked crust.

Refrigerate several hours or overnight. (I cut into it after 4 hours, and it had solidified). Loosen the cheesecake from the side of the pan with a knife, and then remove the side of the springform pan.

For the chocolate whipped cream layer, stir together 1/2 cup powdered sugar and 1/4 cup cocoa in a medium bowl. Pour in 1 cup of cold whipping cream and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Beat for a couple minutes until it is stiff. Then spread the whipped cream over the top of the cheesecake. Garnish with extra raspberries.

It is really delicious! The crust tastes like a chocolate cookie, I love the fruity and creamy taste of the raspberry, and the chocolate whipped cream—I could eat it by the spoonful. Please let me know if you have any questions about it!

log cabin playhouses and the discovery of ketchup | non-stagrams

Good morning, brown eyes.

Another cute diaper from the Honest Company.

I bought these cute sandals with a coupon. I’m excited to wear them. It’s been a little chilly here, but Wednesday forecast says 82!

He loves the fountain at the mall.

I tried a copycat version of Starbucks’ vanilla steamer from Disney’s "babble". It tasted really similar, was delicious, and had this thick (almost marshmallowy) froth that a I didn’t expect from using a blender and not a special frother.

We went to Wendy’s on Wednesday. Nolan discovered ketchup. And he loved it. We had to buy more fries because he was eating them so excitedly.

Mmmmm!

Handsome, hard-working husband.


We had a yard sale with my mom’s group on Friday. My friend Briana’s husband Ryan came dressed similar to Steve. I kept doing double takes at him because I thought he was Steve.

At the yard sale, there was a little log cabin playhouse. Nolan kept opening and closing the shutters “Hi! Bye! Hi! Bye!”

Steve is such a wonderful dad. He is amazing at entertaining and playing with Nolan.

My friend Beth Anne gave me some pretty scarves at the yard sale!

I had my hot fudge jars and some handmade things for sale, but I wasn’t very successful. :( 

Almost done with the next five of my thirty bundts. This one was cherry coke flavored.

Hanging out at Grandma’s. I got him the little LarryBoy figurine, and he’s been carrying it around A LOT.

Nolan loves this wheelchair ramp at church. He would run up and down it all day long if I let him. Yesterday morning, he sat down on it and tried rocking forward, as if it were a slide!

Our church gave all the ladies & moms this little box of inspirational cards.

Playing with some plastic oranges.


Three generations

A sweet card from my mom and stepdad.

Thankful for “Max & Ruby” episodes on the long ride home.
(And a milkshake for mommy while she’s driving.)

Some really great things happened this week that I’ll have to write about later.

One big thing: Steve had his LAST class ever on Thursday! He isn’t quite done yet though—he has to write two 20-page papers by this coming Thursday.

Catch you later! Have a great week!

happy mother’s day

I am so happy to spend this day with my mom, and my mother-in-law, Alice.
They are wonderful, generous women of faith,
and I hope to follow their extraordinary example.

20 months!

Yesterday was Nolan’s 20-month birthday!
In this photo, it looks like he aged five more months instead of just one.
That’s the power of a haircut.
As I was trimming it yesterday in the bathtub, he cried and cried.
I don’t know if he was scared, or if he just really likes his hair.
He plays with it all the time when he’s tired.
In this photo, he grabbed a milk jug out of our recycling bin, and he was filling it with rocks.
I love how entertained he is with filling containers, emptying them out, and filling them again.
Each new word that Nolan says is like a miracle to me.
One day, he didn’t know the word, and the next day, he is repeating it all the time.
He is saying “rawr!” every time he sees a bear or a lion.
He says “bye!” and waves at the TV when his show ends.
When we walk in the room, he says “hiiiii!” and holds it out in a long high-pitched squeal.
I love him so much, my heart could burst.

out-of-this-world chocolate chip cookies

These are decadent cookies: some of the very best cookies I’ve ever had. They’re made with semi-sweet chocolate batter and semi-sweet chocolate chips—for serious chocolate lovers.

Ingredients:
2 bars (4 ounces each) semi-sweet chocolate baking bars, broken into small pieces
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup (half stick) butter, softened
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Melt the semi-sweet chocolate bars.
Either place the chocolate in the top pan of a double boiler over hot water, stirring occasionally; or microwave at 50% power for 1 to 1.5 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds until completely melted.

I used Ghirardelli semi-sweet baking bars. (It’s originally a Ghirardelli recipe.)

Let the chocolate cool for a couple minutes. Then, one-at-a-time, stir in brown sugar, butter, eggs, and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the baking powder. Add the flour mixture gradually to the chocolate mixture.

Stir in the cup of chocolate chips.

Drop by 1/4 cup onto ungreased baking sheet.
(1/4 cup makes for a very large cookie—the size of my palm! If you want smaller cookies, I’d recommend dropping by rounded tablespoon instead, baking them for a little less time.)

Bake for 12-14 minutes.
Since mine were so large, I actually left them in for 16 minutes.

Cool one minute on the baking sheet, then remove to a wire cooling rack.

Steve says to me, “If I didn’t know you at all, I would still marry you, just for these cookies.”