For his 8th birthday Erik chose a spider web cake from a Halloween cookbook. He has been looking forward to this cake almost since his last birthday. I accidentally purchased Special Dark Hershey's Cocoa which I didn't know they made. The dark cocoa made a rich, delicious cake and frosting. The spider is a Keebler Grasshopper cookie with licorice legs. A nice pre-Halloween treat!
No fast food for 2008! Now the rest of the family is grumbling, saying that this is too rash. But when over $800 was spent on fast food in 2007 it is time for radical change. I had a lot of fun last night playing around with all of the features in Quicken and was not at all shocked to discover that we spent over $800 going to the Golden Arches and running for the border! It seems like I'm always going through drive throughs because the kids are starving and can't wait until we get home, or I am too tired and don't feel like making anything or we don't have the ingredients on hand to whip up a decent dinner. No more excuses. I will make an enormous effort to avoid fast food this year. Can we make it 366 days?
The baby's first birthday party WAS better late than never. Here are mom and the girls full of pre-party excitement:
On the menu were sloppy joes, hot dogs, baked beans, cold veggie squares, reeeally good fresh strawberries with marshmallow dip, homemade lemonade, and an ice cream cake. The cake was a Duggar Family recipe (an amazing family with 16 children who have been featured on the Discovery channel). It was very easy to make and tasted great.
Just look at this rave review:
It always amazes me how fast that first year goes! Happy Birthday, Eva Marie! I thank God for you every day.
There is nothing like a cup of real hot chocolate. It is a little more trouble to make than the instant kind but the results are worth it. It's like the difference between store bought bread and bakery bread. It is good with jumbo marshmallows or, my favorite, Reddi-wip sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. There aren't many cold days left here in Michigan so we will enjoy it while we can.
We celebrated this very cold and snowy St. Valentine's Day with a simple party. After lunch we enjoyed cupcakes and milk (coffee for Mom!) while I read aloud Saint Valentine by Richard Sabuda. My nephew, Jacob, had a snow day so he joined us. After our treat, the boys played outside.
