Happy Birthday Kake!

No, that doesn't mean, Happy Birthday Cake, it means Happy Birthday to my daughter Karen! I've called her Kake forever, but onlyl I call her that, and no one else gets to, kind of how my sister calls her husband Charlie, when that isn't his name at all!
Anyway, I'm leery if this video is going to work, but I'm crossing my fingers it will. I just wish I was there again this year to celebrate with her. I love you, Kake! Happy Birthday!!!

Her First Taste Of Food

In California on July 14, Olive got her first taste of food...Papa John's pizza. Cheese pizza, I believe. She liked it. Blame (or congratulate) her daddy for giving it to her.

The following night, he tried to give her garlic toast. She hated it. I don't have pictures of that.

Our Last Day

This is it! This is our last regularly scheduled working day. I say "regularly scheduled" because we actually have to come back on Monday to do one more little thing, but other than that, we're done. We won't be doing any more of this...
or this... (Laura, look how short Eliot's hair was when you first came out here!)
or this...
except maybe we still will be doing all that because they're all my own.

The outpouring of good wishes by our patients for Bud and me have been so touching it's been incredible. Some have told us that when they got the letter they actually cried. Bud has received lots of cards, and one patient even gave him a watch! It's going to be hard for Bud to stop seeing his patients, and it's going to be hard for them to adjust to a new dentist.

So, any suggestions as to what I should do next week?

My Grandchildren

I really wanted to get a picture of all of my grandkids together while we were in California.

The other day, Karen posted some wonderful pictures of them. Click over to her blog to see how cute they are!

Catching Up

It's been busy around here all summer, but I am finally getting around to posting about what we've been doing. On June 3, my mother had her 80th birthday. Because of the momentous occasion, we decided it needed to be celebrated in a big way. Three months of planning brought about the following event.

Here is Laura, the Chief Master Planner. She is holding paper circles that have been sewn together along with the blue and white crepe paper that was also sewn together (I had nothing else to do while sitting around at St. George one weekend) that will be strung across the room.

Here is Cheryl trying to get it twisted the right way. There was a lot of up and down the ladder that day!

Each of 16 tables was decorated to the hilt. Here are a few of them.

At one end there was a display of Mom's hobbies and interests, as well as photos of all her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

This was taken before the party started.

We served strawberry shortcake from this table. I made the table cloth and got it finished enough to this point to use it. It still isn't finished, but it is the first thing on my list to do after the big "R" which is only 2 days away now!

We made all kinds of food. My friend, Julie, made the brownies, some cupcakes, and the cookies. Laura and I made everything else.

Laura wanted the theme to have a State Fair theme, so here is the Sweet Shoppe where the kids could cash in their tickets after playing little carnival games (which I don't have a picture of, but we made lots of cute games for the little ones to play).

Homemade caramel corn-

Cake pops along with chocolate caramel pretzels-

And along with a photo of the pies, here is my friend Julie, who put all the table decorating together and served the shortcakes for us.

This is a picture of the cake stand...

and a close-up of the cake, which wasn't really cake and wasn't served. It was made from rice krispie treats and covered with fondant, then Karen placed Laura's decorations in just the right spots.

Of all the days for Eliot to get super sick, with a fever and everything! Bad timing! He loves his thumb and his mom's hair.

A program was put together for each of the grandkids and greats to say a little something. Agnes and Caleb are "practicing."

There was a photo booth with props...

I was sad that Danny couldn't be there with his family, but I was happy that my other three kids could come with their kids!

What's a birthday party without a picture of the birthday girl? Here she is!
The party was a LOT of work, but it was a smashing success. There were probably 200 people or more that attended to show their appreciation for a very wonderful woman. I love my mom!

The Salad

Do you remember not too long ago I posted this salad?
And then you saw it again here...
And here's a variation of the same salad.
We can't seem to stop eating it. In fact, I've had it three times this week alone. Have you tried it yet? I decided to post the whole thing on my blog so I can find it fast (another time or two of making it and I won't have to follow the recipe anymore because I will have memorized it. Oh, wait. It's me here. I don't remember anything anymore. Good thing I'm writing it down then). It's referred to now as The Salad. Like, if I'm going somewhere and ask "what can I bring?" and the answer is "bring The Salad" this is "The Salad." If someone says "bring A salad" clearly they're not talking about THIS salad, because this is definitely The Salad.

The Salad

Spinach and mixed greens

finely chopped red onion (to a large bowl of salad I use about 1/8 cup of grated onion)

Parmesan cheese, shaved

items of your choosing from the following- mandarin oranges, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, avocado

sliced almonds (sugared or not), optional

The Dressing

(from Our Best Bites)

1/2 cup white wine vinegar

1/2 cup honey

1-2 cloves garlic

1 T grated onion

1 tsp kosher salt

10 cracks of freshly ground pepper

1 cup strawberries, raspberries or blackberries (I've only used strawberries so far)

2/3 cup canola oil

1 1/2 tsp poppy seeds

In a blender, mix until smooth all the ingredients except the oil and poppy seeds. Then while blending, add the oil in a steady stream. Mix briefly, then stir in the poppy seeds.

Refrigerate at least an hour before using. Dressing stays good in the refrigerator for about a week.

P.S. Three more days to the big "R."

Never Again

My sister is in town and she came over Tuesday night to see Laura and her family one last time before the Read's left yesterday morning. We made dinner for everyone, and invited a few extras over for good measure. Laura's first question was "what will we make for dessert?" LynnEl asked that we keep things "simple" so we were going to make strawberry shakes for dessert, and I made some Snickerdoodles to go with the shakes. It turned out that after dinner was over, everyone was too full for shakes, but luckily they'd eaten some of the cookies before dinner was served! Life is uncertain- eat dessert first! Great motto.
I whipped up my normal Snickerdoodle recipe, but I've been wanting to add a secret something for a long time. They turned out so great that my other sister gave them a 10 out of 10, and then my niece agreed they definitely were a 10, but then changed her mind and said they were a 15 out of 10. Maybe she isn't a math whiz, but in my book that makes these a winner. This isn't the post I was planning to put up today, but I told my friend I'd post this instead today just for her. Here you go, Michele!

Do you see the little dark spots on the cookie? Those are bursts of cinnamon that put this cookie over the top! YUM.
So what is it? These little mini cinnamon chips that I bought awhile ago from here.
These are so much better than cinnamon chips you can get from the grocery store. I think the ones from the store taste a little waxy. I'll never make Snickerdoodles again without throwing in a handful of these babies.

Snickerdoodle Cookies (original recipe is in the family cookbook on page 294)

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup shortening

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 3/4 cups flour

2 tsp cream of tartar (thanks for saving me on that one, Sister)

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup of Cinnamon Burst baking chips

cinnamon sugar (about 3 T sugar to 1 T cinnamon)

Heat oven to 365°F. I know, it's weird, but it works.

Mix butter, shortening, sugar and eggs for a couple of minutes. Stir together the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt and add it to the butter mixture. Stir in the chips. Shape dough into balls (I used my small cookie scoop) and roll in cinnamon sugar mixture. Bake cookies on parchment-lined baking sheets for 8 minutes. The cookies won't look like they are done, but once you take them out and let them cool for a bit on the sheet before removing them to a cooling rack, they'll be perfect. If you over-bake your Snickerdoodle, you'll be sorry because it will be too crunchy. You've got to have the crunchy-chewy factor or why bother, right? Bud has told me before that he thought my Snickerdoodles were too sweet. Guess what he ate for dinner last night while I was away at Enrichment? Snickerdoodles. More than one. That's just not like him, so go figure.