A bright spot on a gloomy Monday

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Hello, Monday. How I wish you were still Saturday or Sunday. Or really any day in June or July.

As I sit here typing this, there is a feverish little girl on my lap who has come down with the swine flu.

yay

That last sentence did not deserve a capital letter, proper sizing, or punctuation, such is the annoyance I feel for it in my heart.

But instead of dwelling on the millions of invisible germs that I imagine are marching up my arms as we speak, I will share with you some shots from a very fun photoshoot I had a few months ago.

As I've mentioned before, I never had sisters. I grew up with four brothers and lamented my single-girl status until I went to college and lived with five other girls. Then suddenly, I was a little bit glad that I never had sisters. All the bickering, cycle-time-synchronizing, clothes stealing, and drama - you have none of that with boys.

But while shooting these gorgeous girls, I caught a glimpse of some of the good things with having sisters. Like sisters? They're the only people in the world who can tell you that you don't look good while making a certain face. They will critique your make up or clothes and give you honest feedback. The dreaded, "Do I look fat in this?" will be answered with brutal truth by a sister.

And when you look this gorgeous and your sister tells you so, you can believe it, baby.









Where do these beautiful girls get it, you ask? From their mama (who looks young and hot enough to be the fifth sister). My secret goal in life has been to fatten her up, but it hasn't happened yet, dammit. Curse her willpower of iron! Maybe I should actually just strive to live like she does: Less cookie dough and more exercise.



And let's not forget one with the Daddy, too. He's a pretty important one in this house, I'd wager.


Thanks, guys. You are so amazing and it was very fun to spend some time in your sista world for a bit. Do you think if I adopted myself in that I'd automatically be gorgeous and thin like you are?

Yeah. Didn't think so.

BEST. CAKE. EVER.

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Tap. Tap. Is this thing on? Anybody out there?

Well, I am back from my unplanned and very annoying hiatus. You will be happy to know that Mack is back in school and fully recovered. (Although I did hear today that one of the schools in our district has 18 percent of the student body out due to the swine flu. Makes me wonder how all the rest of us escaped unscathed?)

ANYhoo, I have decided to share with you one of my absolute favorite treats. I helped throw a baby shower this week and thought it was the perfect opportunity to get my cake on.

The sweetness of the cake, however, was momentarily ruined when the husband glanced at the recipe on the counter and commented out loud on the number of calories in the cake.

I know, right?

That was quickly remedied by me:

I found this recipe about a year ago, and it actually belongs to the fabulous Paula Deen, but I borrowed it, tweaked it a little bit, and can safely assume it is the reason I cannot button my jeans today.

First you need three cake pans. I use the classy, no-washing-needed version seen here. Generously grease and flour these babies and set them aside.

Then you take 1 cup butter, which is supposed to be at room temperature - a step I somehow always forget to do ahead of time. The microwave does a great job, and if you accidentally forget to pull the butter out in time, it works just fine if it's a little melted, too.

Cream the melted room temperature butter and 2 cups of sugar for six to eight minutes. Then add four eggs, one a time, beating well after each addition.

There is a little person in our house that has a sixth sense for when the kitchen aid is on. She is like one of Pavlov's little dogs - she hears that humming and she comes a running. Once in a while I'm nice and let her crack the eggs.

Add one teaspoon of vanilla and mix just until combined. Then you're going to take one cup of coconut milk:

And 3 cups flour. Add them alternately to the creamed mixture, beginning and ending with the flour.


Lots of times when I'm baking, things look like this, which is always hard for my OCD brain to ignore:

When you're done, the batter will be very, very thick. Almost cookie dough like. But don't worry, you've definitely done it right if it looks like this. If it's thin and cake-batter like? I don't know how to help you. You might want to consider professional help and get your baked goods on the outside.

Next, pour the batter into your three greased pans (ignoring, of course, the disgusting Crunch Berries cereal on the counter. In my defense, it was only a little after seven a.m. when I made this and breakfast was not fully put away yet. See the clock on the wall for proof.)

Once the batter is spread around each pan, lift them up off the counter and slam them back down to pop any air bubbles. Yes, people, this is going to be a dense cake. Lovely, dense, and incredibly moist.

Slam the cake pans, at least four or five times each, until all the air bubbles are released. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until done.

Cool five minutes or so in the pan, and dump the cakes onto a cooling rack to cool while you prepare the frosting. When I'm not feeling lazy, I like to use the Wilton buttercream frosting recipe. But I have to confess, I have just made this with frosting in a can, and it by no means impacts the deliciousness.

Next, spread some frosting over your first layer like this:

Top that layer with the middle child, I mean, middle layer, and slather that bad boy with some frosting of his own.


Repeat again for the third layer. Do not be alarmed by the imperfect appearance or unevenness of the layers. All will be made right by the coconut. You must trust the little Stie. Has she ever steered you wrong before?

When you have finished frosting all layers and the edges, it will look like this:

Sprinkle coconut over the top, covering any and all mistakes.

Pat coconut up the sides of the cake next, and be prepared for a coconut explosion in your kitchen. That stuff gets EVERYWHERE during this phase of the process. It would be annoying if the end result weren't so darn delicious.

Pipe a little frosting around the bottom of the cake and voila! An absolutely gorgeous specimen, if I do say so myself.

So pretty that I think we need a close-up. Why hello there, lover. What's that? You want Christie to eat a big, thick slice of you? All right. If you insist.

For the baby shower, I also made some of these. Chase came in and asked me why I was making diaper cookies. What say you, internets? Diapers or onesies? I'm sticking with onesies.

The buffet of gluttony, just waiting to be devoured:

And the gorgeous mom-to-be in a pre-shower photo shoot by yours truly:

It's almost wrong how cute she is pregnant, isn't it? I can't wait until the baby is born so I can get myself some newborn lovin'. Yum.

That's what I've been up to this week. Stay tuned for the long-awaited Traveling Shoes winner, a little visit from my brother Dan, and gorgeous photos of gorgeous people.

I think it's shaping up to be a good week after all.

Too mad and tired to come up with a clever title

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They say bad things come in threes.

I'd say my father-in-law suffering a massive heart attack earlier this week would be the first one. (He's going to be okay, but it gave us all a huge scare).

I think that me backing out of a parking space and crashing into some poor woman's car this morning would be number two.

And now I'm hoping that the massive tummy ache I feel from drowning my sorrows in a bowl of cookie dough is the third.

I honestly don't think I can take much more this week.

Stupid life. Sometimes you really tick me off.

The joy of parenting

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Today I got stuck had the privilege of accompanying little miss Hannah on her non-learning party away from school class field trip to the Arch. It was, as all field trips are, sheer torture delightful.

If I were to choose how I would ideally spend my free time, I would never almost always choose spending time with other people's annoying children Hannah and her school friends.

First, I get to sit around doing nothing practice the art of patience while I wait for the children to board the buses. Then I spend a painful thought-provoking hour in traffic, thanks to our annoying state a freeway construction project, and wait again at the Arch for the buses to arrive.

Once all the loud and hyper happy and energetic children emerge from the bus, we maniacally shepherd sweetly lead them to the Arch museum for a tour. It is always a bore treat to listen while park rangers explain the intricacies of the buffalo digestion system. Most gag-inducing humorous moment was when an actual buffalo chip was passed around for the germ magnets children to fondle with their bare hands.

Some of the sickos darlings even raised the large chunk of poo specimen to their noses for a sniff.

And the talking statues are creepy not at all creepy. In fact, I would call them zombie-like life-like and interesting. An added fright bonus was the homeless man that had wandered in and was trying to possibly kidnap bring Jesus to the children.

I mean, what makes a chaperone happier than having to fear for the safety of her charges getting to see interesting urban characters?

Best part of the day was definitely listening to the kids whine for lunch watching the children leap with excitement when it was time to eat. And annoying thrilling to see that they were too busy playing human dominos to actually sit down and eat.

Seriously though.

It was a very long day really fun. I honestly hope I don't have to go to another one of these this year can't wait for the next one.

Remind her of this when she's 15 and hates me, will you?