Happening Holidays

My friends I am sorry for my absence again.

We have been so busy I have hardly had time to breathe.

We finally got all the toys from Karen's Kids delivered to the needy kids in the area.

I had the privilege of driving one of the Santa's around to deliver the toys. The look on those kids' faces when they saw Santa and the bag full of toys. I tell you those looks were a blessing to me. My heart was warmed and opened. I just can't describe the feelings I felt.

We have attended several school activities as well. One was a band concert and the others were Christmas plays. They all were really cute. I enjoyed watching each one of them.

My children were also in the Christmas Play at our church. Hope was an angel, Faith was the arch angel Gabriel, Eddie was a wise man, and Sj played Jesus' earthly father Joseph. I didn't get to watch the play because I was directing traffic backstage BUT the kids did a really great job and I am really proud of them.

I got to attend a birthday party for one of my best friends children. She turned one this past Wednesday. It is hard to believe she is a year old already. Where in the world does time go? Can someone tell me?

Lets see...we also had a cookie party to go to. We went to my mom's and made cookies and decorated them. We also made homemade decorations. 

All of this on top of practices, Church, Bible Study, Christmas Shopping. We are wiped out here in Misadventure land.

I am happy to say I have all of my Christmas shopping done. All the gifts are wrapped and under our tree. Oh I guess I had better explain a bit...In our house, Santa brings the stocking stuffers. You know, to help him get in and out quicker. Anyway, I had the majority of my shopping done by the 5th of December. I did order a few extra things online that came in this past week. I think if I totaled up all that I spent it would be around $1000. I know that is alot but this is going to be the last really big Christmas the kids will have. We will be spending a lot of time volunteering next year. I think they may get 3 gifts each next year. But we will see. I know we all want to spoil our kids during this time of year. I just want my kids to remember the reason for Christmas..not just getting stuff. I want them to volunteer and give. Learn that gift of giving and ministering to others.

BUT I am super excited for them to open their gifts. They all got some things they had been wanting for a while. I tell you, the older they get the more expensive gifts get!! But they will have a good amount of gifts this year and next year we will tone it down.

Well, I think that is all for now. I have a lot to do today.

I will update you all on a lot of stuff as soon as Christmas is over. Right now things are just too busy and hectic. 

I love each of you who read this blog.

Be Blessed,

Erin

A New Misadventure

Hello again my friends.

I'm doing pretty good this week with my blogging. I have missed writing to all of you.

I am thinking about starting a new misadventure. The idea came to me way back in summer when my neighbor had a catastrophe. You see, she had ordered and payed for a Team Umizoomi cake for her son's birthday. He's just a little guy of 3 or 4 years old. Well, she picked up the cake and paid for it but by the time she got it home, the cake had fallen apart in the box it was in. She didn't drop it, she didn't drive crazy, she didn't do anything but be careful with it.

Well, they have heard my kids and myself talk about baking and how I love to make cakes and cupcakes so her daughter rushed over to my house and asked me to come and take a look at this cake. Man that poor cake and the poor little boy and the furious mom!!!! The cake layers had slid off each other because the baker made them in small layers and then used tiny dowels to try to hold the layers in the individual cakes together. Her fondant work was pretty good but it wasn't on the layers it was just the characters.The cake was just iced in buttercream. It was slippery. It fell. The cake was a mess. 

I wish I had a picture to show you all the mess.

Well I told my neighbor that I thought I could fix it and piece it back together. I ran over here to my home and made some icing. I took all my icing tints back over to her house with my piping bags and such and started working. I tinted the icing to match and began piecing all the cake pieces back together. Guess what....I was able to take this poor crumbled cake and make it look like new again.

So can you guess what my misadventure is? 

I am thinking of starting out in a home based business making cakes and cupcakes for events. Then if it takes off, I may just look into getting into one of the empty storefronts here in my town. (We have one that was a doughnut/coffee shop that closed because the owner was elderly and sick and the kids didn't want to keep up with it..it hasn't been touched so maybe it still has the ovens and stuff in it) My bakery will carry gourmet cupcakes in flavors like chocolate death, orange cream, cookies and cream, red velvet, regular cupcakes like vanilla and chocolate. I would love to have some brownies and cookies in there as well and then people could order birthday cakes and maybe even wedding cakes.

Now, I live in a small town..It may be 5-10 square miles at the most. However, we have one place here in town to buy cakes and it is a local supermarket. We don't have anyone who makes personalized cakes. The closest to us is about 20 miles away.

With all that being said, I have ordered a few things to help me get started. I went to the Wilton web site and ordered a master set of piping tips, a cake turntable, and a piping practice board. I have been using them all and believe it or not, I'm pretty good. I actually surprised myself. 

Now another cool thing is, you can buy wilton products at walmart and I have 4 within 30 minutes of me. I can also get cake stuff from Hobby Lobby and the outlet mall which is only 40 or so minutes away.

I'm really thinking of giving it a go. I think I will get started by bringing my designer cupcakes to carry-ins at our church, to family reunions, and test them on my family and the ladies at our women's Bible study. 

So what do you think?

Should I give it a go?

Let me know in a comment.

Until we meet again remember I'm sending my love and big hugs to you.

Be blessed,

Erin

Cleaning again?

You know what. ... No matter how hard I try, I just can't do it all. So I've split it all up. In a previous post I mentioned my new system for keeping my house clean.  I had things i would do daily and little extras added in. It really was a great plan but i couldn't keep it up.  I got busy and the house suffered.

Keeping a clean house has been a struggle for me. A lot of people tell me "well you have 4 kids". To me that is no excuse.  If i had younger kids then i may be more comfortable with that excuse but since my youngest is 8 and my oldest is 14 and they are all old enough to help out, that excuse doesn't fly.

I really have tried everything to keep a clean house.  I've tried chore charts, rewards, money, doing it myself. .. You name it I've tried it. Nothing ever works. 

So I'm back to giving everyone a room. I've relinquished control of the laundry and laundry room. My hubby now washes and dries the clothes. I fold them and put them away. That in itself has helped a lot.  I clean the kitchen full time: dishes and countertops. My kids rotate between the living room, dining room, bathroom, and kitchen floor/trash. Each one of them get a different room every week.  If they do it everyday they get paid for their work. 

We've had this plan for nearly a month now and so far it's working just fine. The kids are even keeping their bedrooms reasonably clean. Which is a plus. 

The pic in this post is of our chore list. I'm writing on my phone so I'm not sure where it will be in the post. 

I hope all of you are having a great day!

Be blessed, 

Erin