Decorating Easter Eggs

Tonight the girls and I dyed our Easter Eggs while Bill was at work. They picked a kit that jazzed up the decorated eggs with glitter after they were dyed. I tried and tried to get them to slow down and decorate them with crayons before dying...but they wouldn't have it. Sadly there are no names or designs on our easter eggs this year, only pretty colors and glitter.

The kit I purchased was supposed to have six colors: blue, green, yellow, purple, pink, and orange. I guess when you purchase you kit from a discount store, like Aldi, you are taking your chance at getting six tablets, but not necessarily six different colors. We ended up with two green, two purple, a yellow and a blue. Originally when the girls saw the tea cups full of dye they were nearly in tears about the lack of their favorite color PINK, however the purple dye ended up creating a nice pink egg color. Whew!

After the eggs were dyed, they took a quick dip in the "magic glitter solution" before sloshing and spinning in the "magic glitter dust".

Amazingly, we managed to dye all of the eggs with only one casualty:

I always make a couple more than a dozen for just that reason! Here is the finished product, as Brie would say: Taa Daa!

Arguably the Best Present I Have Ever Received!

Oh, how I have dreamed of owning a KitchenAid Stand Mixer! Seriously, I have! I LOVE to bake, and every baker needs a great mixer.

I'm happy to say I no longer have to dream, I'm the very proud owner of a beautiful Red KitchenAid Artisan Mixer! Thank you so much Mom, Dad, and Gigi for my EARLY birthday present!! Lucky for me Beth's Birthday is a little over a month before mine, so in order to give the proper surprise we both received them at the same time!

I'm proud to tell you I broke this baby in good this weekend! We had a Trivia Night on Saturday, so I baked two different kinds of cake truffles, along with pudding shots for this event. I was also in charge of Beth's Birthday cake.

Since everyone is always asking me for my recipes...I'm including them!

I didn't take pics of the pudding shots, I'm going to share the basic recipe. The flavor combinations are endless. I made Coconut Creme - yumm!!

Pudding Shots

1 small package instant pudding(I used coconut creme)

3/4 cup milk

3/4 cup booz(I used Malibu)

1 8 oz. container extra creamy cool whip

In a bowl combine pudding mix and milk, beat until smooth. Add alcohol and beat until thoroughly combined. Fold in cool whip. Package in "shot" containers(I use the same ones I use for Jello Shots - 2 oz. clear cups with lids), store in the freezer.

My sister made chocolate ones using Godiva liquor and vodka - also a big hit!

Cake Truffles

Next I made cake balls, I think I'd rather call them cake truffles though. Bakerella makes really great cake balls, hers are actually balls - or really fun shapes and pops. I love Bakerella's great ideas, her stuff is adorable, but for everyday baking I don't share her attention to detail - instead of spending all of that time rolling each one into a perfect ball I like to use my cookie scoop which gives me a really nice even amount of cake with a nice flat bottom. I'm okay with the little pooling and drips of chocolate around the bottom. I think it gives the cake truffles character. I also would just rather call it a truffle than a ball - doesn't that sounds more appetizing?

Anyway, cake truffles are great. There are tons of flavor combos, I love thinking of all of the possibilities. For Valentine's Day I made chocolate covered strawberry(strawberry cake, cream cheese icing, dipped in milk chocolate). This weekend I was in a coconut mood, so I made coconut rum flavored cake truffles and also chocolate - because you can never go wrong with chocolate!

Here is Bakerella's basic recipe for cake balls.

For my coconut rum flavored cake truffles I used a white box cake mix and substituted Malibu coconut rum for the water in the package directions. I chose to use a store bought frosting, I picked coconut pecan flavor which had lots of nice pieces of coconut, which I then jazzed it up a bit with a shot of Malibu. After scooping into balls and freezing for about a half an hour I dipped them in white chocolate.

For my chocolate cake truffles I used a devils food cake mix, milk chocolate icing, and dipped them in milk chocolate.

Both flavors went over equally well at trivia, I took the left overs to work today where they were quickly gobbled up by my co-workers.

Beth's Birthday Cake

After receiving our new mixers last week it was decided that I should make Beth's birthday cake so that I could use my new mixer - as if I needed an excuse! My sister shares my affection for Bakerella's adorable website, and had been wanting to try the recipe she suggested for Peanut Butter Fudge Cake. It was very good, and very rich! No calories involved here - all in all this cake included two whole bags of Reece's Peanut Butter cups!

Bella thought it was yummy in her tummy - she even showed us!!

St. Patrick's Day Parade 2009

St. Patrick's Day Parade

We decided at the last minute to enjoy the nice weather and head over the St. Louis for the St. Patrick's Day parade. Beth, Jason, and Bella joined us and we had a great time.

We went to Keener Plaza, they had all kinds of great free stuff for the kids to do. Face painting, bounce houses, etc. We spent a little too long on this stuff, and unfortunately didn't get very good spots to watch the parade, but we had fun anyway. We definitely want to go back next year and decided that we will send the boys to camp out for parade spots why we take the kiddos around to all of the festivities.

Because we had bad spots, and the kids were whining a bit to see better, you'll notice they spent lots of time on our shoulders. Primarily Bill and Jason's, but Beth and I got in on the action too. Notice all of our fun garb, gotta love the dollar section at Target! I realize after looking at these pictures that the green I choose to wear really wasn't that green. Oh well!

The girls really enjoyed the Irish Dancers. Here is their interpretation...they are such a hoot!

Catching Up

Hello, my name is Becky, and I am a horrible blogger. Yes, I know it has been over a month since my last post, so I'm going to catch you up. I will try to do better.

Here are a couple of the girls playing in the snow.

Here are a couple at the mens SIUE basketball games. We have been to most of the home games this year. The girls love going. This particular Saturday, I was feeling brave and let both of the girls invite a friend to go along. Brittney brought her friend Morgan from our neighborhood, and Brie choose her best friend Sidney. It was fun, but I will say I didn't see much of the game that night.

Next is Superbowl! This was right after Grandpa passed away, so none of us were feeling much like partying. A nice relaxing family evening was just what we needed. The boys watched the game in the basement on the big screen, while us girls wachedthe kids and the commercials upstairs. Bella wasn't very intereseted in the game...she wanted everyone to read her gooks to her. Notice Gigi and Aunt Katie both gave in.

My girlies were acting silly in their 3D glasses before watcing the Alien preview.

Sweet Bella wanted to take some pictures too!

Beth and Brit looking through Auntie's pictures.

Here is a little video of Bella showing off all of her tricks. She is so precious! Notice that she knows where many of her body parts are now, and my girls favorite Extreme Bella!

Here are a couple of pics of the girls at Noel Richey's birthday party which was at Collinsville fun park. Fun! Their favorites were Air Hockey, and of course the bumper cars!

Last, a couple of weekends ago we went out with our good friends Amy and Rick and their two sons Ryan and Alex and Beth, Jason, and Bella. During our 1 hr and 15 minute wait for dinner at Alfonzo's we played at Family Fun Time. It was very crowded, but fun.

Alex was a little young for the festivities, so here he is chilling with Mommy.

Ryan trying out ski ball.

Bella chilling in the Ferrari.

Brittney playing air hockey with her Daddy. She's very serious.

Brie riding the rides.

Ski Ball! The best game, as you get the most tickets. The goal...the girls must win at least 200 tickets so that they can get some annoying noise maker thing, a "diamond" ring, a bouncy ball, an air head and a jolly rancher. I'm pretty sure we hit the jackpot on he machine Brit was on. Must have been broken and spitting out extra tickets. There was quite a line of people waiting for Brittney to leave so they could have her machine!

In Memory of My Sweet Grandpa

It is with a heavy heart and teary eyes that I tell you my sweet Grandpa, or Pappy as we have called him since he became a Great Grandpa, passed away this morning. I am including some of my favorite pictures of him(at least that I have in digital format). We spent the evening looking through pictures and old albums and telling our favorite stories about him. I'm going to share some with you now, as it is helping me to focus on the great times and not our great loss.

When Beth and I were little my Grandparents babysat us while our parents went out, when my Mom and Dad were coming to pick us up we used to run to their bed and act like we were sleeping so we could spend the night. My Dad used to tickle us and we would giggle, but never open our eyes. It usually always worked!

Pappy used to love us to comb and style his hair. We could do anything we wanted to it, but as soon as we were done he combed it right back into place. He never had a hair out of place, and even these last few days at the hospital he always looked great. His nurses even always commented on it.

We used to play baseball in their big back yard all of the time, he was so patient and would pitch to us for hours and hours. Brian used to run the bases backwards, it was so funny. Grandpa was convinced he would make it to America's Funniest Home video's with the film of that one.

My Grandpa took us all to Disney World on vacation one year, and bought a new video camera to capture the memories. Most of the memories captured were Grandpa's feet, as when he thought the camera was on it was off and visa versa. The lens cap was also on for a large part of the trip, so you would hear voices but not see video.

He wanted me to be a good golfer so bad, and took me out to the legion religiously every week. (he later did the same with my brother and sister) He knew everyone on that course, but no ones names. He's always called all men Tiger and ladies simply Lady or Gal. He always had a big smile and hello for everyone!

I attribute my love of ice cream and all things sweet to my dear Pappy! He used to take us very regularly to North Side Dairy Haven for 3/$1 Hamburgers and ice cream cones. I still love that dive to this day!

This last summer Brittney played ball on the ball diamond across the street from my Grandparents house. Since Pappy's leg was amputated a few years ago, and as his health has deteriorated, it has become harder for him to leave the house. But with the ball diamond right across the street, Pappy could hop on his scooter and head to Brit's games. No matter how bad he felt, he never missed a game. He was so proud and excited to get to see her. Brittney always scolded me for it, but I always put a bow in her hair for her games...it was so Pappy could tell which little girl was Brit, his eyes weren't good enough to read names on the back of their shirts or pick up little facial details.

I could go on and on, but I will leave you with that. Thank you so much everyone for your thoughts and prayers. Pappy is in a better place now, watching over us in Heaven with the best seat in the house.

Rough Week!

This week has been a rough one for our family...an emotional roller coaster and lots of sickness.

It started last week with stomach flu. Brie started it off on Thursday, Brittney followed on Saturday, then me on Sunday. Bill got a little bout too, but we're not sure his wasn't self inflicted from eating too much jalapeno loaded Chili.

On Monday my Grandpa was admitted to the hospital with Severe Congestive Heart Failure. They moved him to the ICU on Wednesday and things aren't looking good. He's still fighting, but his body is showing signs of shutting down. His kidneys, lungs, and heart are all in bad shape. This is Pappy's third admission to the hospital since Thanksgiving, and each time he comes home weaker. Please keep him in your prayers, we really need them right now. Pappy is not ready to go yet, he wants to watch his Great Granddaughters grow up and to see my brother and Katie get married.















Pappy is such a kind hearted and sweet man. He plays the lotto everyday in hopes of winning so that he can pay off all of our houses so that we don't have to worry about money. He is soft hearted and caring and would do anything to bring joy to someone else. We're not ready to lose him yet, so please send some extra prayers his direction if you can.

Brittney has been home from school with a virus yesterday and today. Sore throat, cough, fever of 102-104. She's doing a little better today, but we're trying to keep her calm and well rested.

We got a call this morning at 5:30 that Bill's brother, Dennis, was in the hospital with appendicitis. We just got a call that he is out of surgery and doing well. If all continues to go well he will get to come home tomorrow.

Uggg, I'm tired of sickness and Dr.'s and hospitals! We're hoping and praying that the sickness is leaving our house for good and that Denny and especially my Grandpa will get better and get to come home soon!