Spiders Beware!

Joshua just saw a spider, but it crawled away and we can't find it. Never fear! Joshua has a plan. He is drawing pictures of things that scare spiders and leaving them around the floor so the spider will be scared and stay away. He also tells me that if the spider crawls onto one of the pictures I can just fold the spider up in it and throw it away. So far we have pictures of...

a mouse

a police officer shooting a spider

a yellow jacket

a picture of a giant and a spider. The giant has an axe and a pokemon and they are causing trouble for the spider.

And finally, the dreaded pillow pet bee.

If you were a spider would you come near?

I've Been Creating the Perfect Berry Buttercream Frosting

I had a Cook's Illustrated kind of weekend. Since Thursday, I've been on a quest to make the perfect berry frosting - something I've wanted to do since I had this divine berry frosting at my favorite bakery in Los Gatos last year. I went there as a special treat on Thursday and it gave me the push I needed to get to work on it.

After reading several recipes I set out to create my own version (or try to recreate the one at "Icing on the Cake."

I tried two methods I found in recipes. One was a recipe from "Sprinkles Cupcakes." It was okay, but I'd seen a lot of recipes like it on blogs and it just didn't have that really good berry kick that I wanted - it was too bland.

Then I tried one that used a berry syrup and a buttercream frosting made with egg yolks that you temper and something didn't go right with that. So I added the syrup to my regular buttercream recipe and that was better, but still not what I was looking for.

By that time I had a really well formed idea of what I wanted to do. I worked on it this morning and by this afternoon I had made the PERFECT berry buttercream frosting!! Now I just can't decide if it should be my secret recipe. I think I'll hang on to it for a little while. Maybe I'll share it a few months from now. I can't wait to make cupcakes tomorrow to put the frosting on. YUM!!

Joshua thinks his name should be spelled...

Joshua has informed us (now that he is learning to read) that his name should have a "w" in it. For the last week he has signed his name Joshuwa -make sense doesn't it? (phonetically anyway)

Leah & Matthew play Siciliano by Bach

Leah and Matthew played this in church on Sunday and it was BEAUTIFUL! This recording of one of their practices doesn't do it justice, especially since the camera was too far away from the flute, but it's still very enjoyable.

Eve's First Make-Up & Makeover

When my girls turn 12, we have a special outing to the department store for a makeover. This is their introduction to wearing make-up. I love it because it's a special time for us and because the girls get great instruction about how to wear make-up in a natural way - not overdone. We got a make-up artist that was so great about pre-teen makeup!! Here's some pictures of it all. Did I mention we had so much fun!?!

She's beautiful with or without make-up, but she looks a bit more grown up with the make-up. Here's the final result...

Picture of Nathan before a church dance

Melting A Heart

So, a few days ago, Joshua and I were sitting together and he said, "I'm so happy!" I replied, "What are you happy about?" and he pointed his finger at me. I said, "Me?" and he nodded his head and replied, "mmm-hmm" It melts my heart every time I think of it.