Ice Cream Cake

This last weekend was the birthday celebration for my mother-in-law and Mary.  I made my very first ice cream cake.  I got the instructions off the internet.  It was pretty easy.  I just lined 2 glass cake pans with ice cream sandwiches.

 

I let some Rocky Road Ice Cream sit on the counter and get soft.

 

I then made a layer of the ice cream on top of the ice cream sandwiches.  I put it back in the freezer.

 

After it hardened I put a layer of Hershey's fudge on top of the ice cream.

Then I put a final layer of ice cream sandwiches.  This pan I lined with plastic wrap so that after it froze I could turn it upside down and dump it out.

The next morning after it was frozen, I put whip topping in a pastery gun and made little picks all over the top.

I then sprinkled mini chocolate chips on top.

 

I kept it in the freezer until about 15 minutes before we ate it.

 

 

It was a hit!

 

 

If I make it again, I will make one of the layers cake and only one layer of ice cream sandwiches.

 

Dear Mary Girl

It is early morning now and I am thinking of this day.  Eight years ago you made your entrance into this life.  It was an amazing day, one that I had never experienced in my whole life and one I will never experience again.  It started out in great pain and then turned into one of the greatest joys of my life.  I experienced something I had longed for for 25 years.  It was a long wait for me  and for your daddy, but it was worth it.  You were a promise to me from the Lord that was fulfilled on that day and I rejoiced in that He had remembered me and was kind to me to give me a child in my old age.  I was 46 and my hair had already started to grey, the vapor of my youth had disappeared but even though people may have looked at me as old on the outside, I felt young in my heart.  I knew God had given you to me and your dad and that no matter what other people said about our age, He would give us the strength to raise you in the fear and knowledge of the Him, our heavenly father.  You have always brought so much joy to our hearts.  From the time you were tiny we have laughed at your antics and rejoiced in your milestones.  This year is no exception.  You have started 2nd grade and you love to read and tell stories.  You were excited when I told you that this year you would learn to write so that you could put your stories on paper.  You have had so much fun learning to play the piano.  We have had so much fun playing together and you have lit the joy of playing all over again for me.  When music is shared it is a wonderful thing.  Yesterday when you played for Uncle Ed and Aunt Harlean that was so fun!  You played, Uncle Ed played, and then I played and we even played some tunes together like Chop Sticks and Heart and Soul.  It was a good fellowship time and lots of fun.  We are very thankful to the Lord for giving us the talent and ability to make music and enjoy it. You are growing very quickly and getting tall, you are up to Grandma's nose now and in a few more years you will be looking at her eye to eye.  You are a happy girl, usually waking up with a smile on your face.  You love people and like to say kind words to them.  You are an encourager and have told me at different times that I can do it!  You love to dance and are learning to tap dance this year.  You love motion and rhythm.  You love art and your drawings are very good for your age with lots of detail and are able to express on paper what you see.  You are a helper and get a lot of pleasure in helping me.  You will clear the table and put things away, you will set the table, you love to help me in the kitchen and watch with great interest when I am baking.  I know in a few short years you will be in that kitchen rattlin' those pans and whipping up something for your dad and I.  We look forward to the years ahead and all that you will learn but there is a bitter sweetness in you growing up.  Sometimes I just want to hang on to these times of your young childhood and innocence never wanting to see them go, but they are a season that I will always treasure in my heart.  Most importantly I see you growing in your knowledge of the Lord and your love for Him.  You love to get your Bible in our family devotions and read the Bible story out loud.  You talk about God touching your heart and that you will love Him always.  I know your dad and I have not been perfect and we have made some mistakes along the way, but we have always loved you and loved God most of all and we want to continue to teach you the truths of His word and that you will not just know about Him but that you will know Him, that his Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth.  I am so thankful to have privilege of raising you and training you in the way that you should go, so that when you are older you will not depart from it.  Here are a few videos through the years that always bring a smile to our faces.  We love you our dear Mary Girl and we are so happy to celebrate this special day that you were born.  

Here is the link: http://youtu.be/q9jxak8vLYg



Here is the link: http://youtu.be/9b5kueEVgAc


Here is the link: http://youtu.be/UNKsVRmgaO8


 
Here is the link: http://youtu.be/aNdJC0SAVmk

Fall Fun

Rich had a short vacation, the first one with pay in a couple of years. So we were excited to just be together and do some fun local stuff.  First we went to Lithia Park and looked at the beautiful fall leaves.  We brought a plastic bag for putting pretty leaves in, for Mary to press in a book.  When we got to the upper duck pond a whole bunch of ducks came ashore thinking our bag of leaves was food.  You cannot feed the ducks now as it messes up the pond and fills the ducks up so they don't eat what they need to.  Mary was thrilled to have the ducks follow her around.  We also saw some deer.  They were coming into the park and town because it is hunting season and they know they can't be hunted in the city limits.  They were pretty tame and let us get close.  After our visit to the park we met Rich's folks for lunch.  It was such a lovely day.  Here is a slide show:

 

 

Here is the link: http://youtu.be/kENuavHck7A

 

On Sunday after lunch we went to Seven Oaks Farm.  It was a gorgeous Fall day.  Mary got to ride the ponies, feed the goats and get a pumpkin for herself and one for Mackie too!  Here are the pics of our visit.

Mary sure loved feeding and petting the goats.

Celebration

This last weekend was very busy and lots of fun.  Rich's sister and all her kids and grandkids came into town to celebrate Rich's dad's 90th birthday.  Rich' sister has 2 grandsons that are just a little bit older than Mary.  So she had fun with her cousins.  On Thursday we all met at an all you can eat Chinese buffet here in town.  Rich had to go to work after that and Mary and I joined the cousins for a game of miniature golf.  It was a warm afternoon and we almost melted but we had fun.  The younger kids went on the bumper boats to cool off.  The next day we all met at a seafood restaurant and then went for a bowling.  Rich's mom, me and the littles all played together.  Mary ended up winning!  On Saturday we went to a local park and had our family picture taken.  It was great to get us all together for a picture.  That night we went to a really nice local restaurant for a big party.  There was family and friends there.  Mary had so much fun and we all did.  Her little heart has been so excited for Grandpa's party.  She had so much fun shopping for the party decorations and helping Rich and I setting things up at the restaurant.  We had a wonderful evening of family memories, good food and lots of fun!  We are thankful for Dad Cardwell's long life and the good father and grandfather that he has been to us all.  Without more ado, I will post the videos and photos of our celebration.

Here is the link to the video: http://youtu.be/KBHwtiOAAdI

Here is the link to Ethan and Mary Dancing: http://youtu.be/K7SbE2l4KPY

Mamey Sapote Bread

Remember that wonderful Mamey Sapote fruit that our friend sent us that I talked about in the post before this one.  Well, Rich wanted to try to use some in a sweet bread.  So we did!

 

Ingredients

• 2 & 1/2 cups flour (I use unbleached white, but you can use any wheat flour you like)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cup sugar (I like white, but you can use brown)
• 1 cup full-fat sour cream (I love Daisy Sour Cream because it has no artificial ingredients)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 ripe mamey zapote (about 2 cups of ripe fruit, give or take) You can substitute with bananas
• 3/4 cups of softened, salted butter (1 & 1/2 sticks) do not use margarine. Substitute with olive oil if needed
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

 

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 350F
• Blend the sour cream, eggs, butter, vanilla and zapote until smooth
• Sift the flour and baking powder
• Add the sugar and salt to the flour mixture
• Stir in the zapote mixture to the flour until smooth
• Butter and flour a large bread pan (or two smaller ones)
• Pour the batter till it’s 3/4 of the way to the top
• Bake for one hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out *mostly* clean (a few crumbs/wet marks are OK)
• Let cool for 15 minutes on the counter before turning out of the pan
• Serve with butter
• Enjoy!

This is a great recipe.  The bread was wonderful.  Here is some of the bread with homemade apple butter on it.  It was good, but it even tasted better with real butter melted on it.  When I first tasted it, it had a chocolate flavor and when I served it to Mary with only telling her it was Mamey Sapote bread, she said after her first taste, "Wow, brownies!"  When we used the Mamey Sapote fruit in our sourdough pancakes, it didn't have that flavor, so I don't know if it will turn out that way for you when you make the bread, but it sure was a sweet surprise for us and we ate the 3 little loaves very quickly!

Yummy Lunch

We had an extra yummy lunch today.  Last week we had gone out to a local farm and bought some produce.  One of those things was some spaghetti squash.  Rich made meatballs.  He used some pork tenderloin that he ground up in the food processor and added some of our home made sourdough bread crumbs and added some of our garden basil.  While he fried the meat balls we made some sauce from our garden tomatoes.  We added garlic, onion and basil to that.  We also cooked our spaghetti squash by poking holes in the hard shell, heating it in the microwave for 10 minutes on high, cutting it open and scooping out the stringy flesh and then Rich cooked it the rest of the way in the skillet.  It was so great to have all the fresh ingredients in our lunch today!

 

 

Mary loved it all but as usual she wanted it all separate except the parmesan cheese on the spaghetti squash.

 

The next treat was some lovely Mexican/Central American fruit called Mamey Sapote.  We received this as a gift from our dear brother in the Lord, Todd, down in Bakersfield.  We cut it open and took a taste.  It was delicious.  We scooped out the fruit and covered it and put it in the fridge.  Todd said it even tastes better the next day.  So we plan on using some of it in our sourdough pancakes tomorrow instead of banana.  It has such a sweet and unique flavor, very tropical and very yummy!

 

 

Mary is holding the seeds of the Mamey.  We plan on planting them.  You are supposed to plant them right away in a well drained soil.  In their natural tropical habitat they grow very large but maybe we can make a house plant out of it, like our avocado trees.  We will see.

Growin' Up

Tonight I was just struck so profoundly how big Mary is getting. She was working on a piece called the Dance of the Irish. She loves a challenge and works very hard on pieces. Sometimes I wish I could stop time and rest in the moment, but time marches on!

 

Here is the link to the video: http://youtu.be/fiTzmzfTopU

Apple Butter

I made apple butter yesterday and it made the house smell so yummy with cinnamon, sugar, cloves, all spice and nutmeg.  This is the recipe I used and it was super easy and tastes great!

CROCK POT APPLE BUTTER

Approximately 3 lb. apples
3 cups sugar...
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. cloves
Dash of salt
3/4 cup water or fresh apple cider

Fill Crock-pot 3/4 full with peeled, cored and sliced apples. Add the remaining ingredients and stir until evenly mixed. Cover and cook on low setting overnight or until the butter is of a thick, spreadable consistency.
If apple butter has too much liquid, remove lid and cook on high until thickened. Stir often as butter thickens to prevent scorching.
Store in refrigerator for up to 6 weeks. Freeze for longer storage.
Variation: For a less sweet apple butter, substitute 1 cup honey for the sugar.
To can the apple butter, pack into hot jars leaving 1/4-inch headspace and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Roses and Orchids

This is my sweet little baby rose. Rich bought this little rose bush for me when we were courting back in 2001. It was the first plant he bought me and it has survived all these years. A couple of moves in Cali and then all the way up here. I thought I lost it last year when we had the subzero temps in December. In the spring it had one tiny green shoot come up but now it is all full and beautiful. I told Rich it is such a symbol of our love, everlasting!

Now on to my orchid. I bought this on a whim about 4 years ago. I had never grown an orchid before and thought I would give it a try. I had success and it would bloom once a year. Well this year it started blooming in January and had 10 blooms about the time those started fading it sent out a another set of 5 on the same bloom stalk and then when those faded it sent out another bud on the same stalk with 10. So it has bloomed continually on the same stalk for 9 months and produced 25 blooms. It seems pretty unusual for me. I don't know if orchids do that often or not?

Here it is today with 9 remaining blooms.

Here it is in April when I photographed it for an article on Rich's blog.

Here is a bloom I used to make a corsage for Mary's ballet teacher for Valentines day.