th(E) Cake

5 years ago I was in a friend's wedding. She was from a pretty well-to-do family in Birmingham and the reception was held at The Club. I (only once mind you) mistakenly called it the (short vowel) club and was IMMEDIATELY corrected simultaneously by a few people that it was not the (short) club it was THE (long vowel) Club. How uncouth of me!

However I understand that a little better after making my sister in law's wedding cake. To me it was not just the wedding cake it was THE cake. Now I am aware that the cake is not the most important thing in the wedding. It actually ranks below quite a few things, however, it is something everyone will see and when Katie looked back on her wedding day I didn't want her to look back and say oh it was so beautiful but man wasn't that thing that happened with the cake hilarious! Like maybe it fell over, made everyone sick, or just looked so horrible that people felt they needed to over tell you how great it was. Since it was the one thing I was solely in charge of and the first time I've ever made a cake, not just a wedding cake but a cake in general, I wanted to do a good job.

I started the process the day before we left for Enterprise for Christmas. I had been looking online for months for advice, recipes, decoration ideas, etc so in my head I knew exactly how this was supposed to go. All the ingredients and supplies had been purchased and Steph let me borrow her mom's cake decorating stuff. I had also borrowed her kitchen aid mixer and my friend Krysti's mixer so that I would have three in all. It was definitely a full kitchen that day!


Anyway I baked, cooled, filled, and crumb frosted the layers for the three tiered cake and shoved them in my freezer quite proud that I had gotten it all done. Of course three days later in Enterprise I realized I was supposed to make two layers for each tier and I had only done one. Funny how that tidbit of info I hadn't read about, I guess it was supposed to be common sense. So Christmas night when we got back to Conyers, before we left for Gainesville the next morning, I baked, cooled, filled and crumb frosted the second layer for the three tiered cake.

We transported the three tiers (unstacked) to Gainesville and put them in the church kitchen. That night after a full day of wedding preparation and the rehearsal dinner I made more icing then I ever want to see again in a giant commercial mixer and spent the next few hours icing the cake and smoothing it to the best of my ability. Thank the Lord (seriously thank you so much) that my cousin in law Hannah stayed to help me. She gave me company and took on the icing process too. Two completely unexperienced bakers did a pretty dang good job!

The next day we were able to again transport this freakin' HEAVY thing (still unstacked) to the reception hall where I added ribbon and finally put all the pieces on top of each other. The only part that was hard was what to put on top. I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like but had no clue how to do it. Finally after another team effort it was all done and if I do say so myself it turned out pretty fabulous. Definitely WAY better than I had anticipated. People said it tasted good to but there was no way I was eating any. I stared at that thing way to long to be able to enjoy it!


I now understand why wedding cakes cost so much. I spent almost exactly $100 after it was all said and done which isn't much but the work you put in....WOW!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

Wow...so Zach, Micah and I just got back from a southeast Christmas tour and are EXHAUSTED! The busiest part had nothing to do with Christmas but that will come in a later post.

We spent Dec. 21st-25th at my parents' house in Enterprise, AL. Unfortunately there was only one day (Christmas Day) that we were all actually there but that's alright. We spent the first part of the week with my brother Tim, sister Jennifer and nieces Keelie and Haley. David and Christina were gone for a long weekend and Chris had basketball games to coach. We basically did nothing but watch my mom cook for us and it was FANTASTIC. It was nice to be able to sit in one spot, especially since my dad was taking Micah to the park and playing with him constantly outside on the bikes!

Christmas Day we were all together and had a great time opening presents. I was hoping Micah would be a little more into the present opening this year, but for that to happen I think he'd have to open his stocking last! He got a reindeer pez dispenser and spent the majority of the morning eating candy (it was Christmas after all!!) Then one of the first presents he opened was a kiddie electric guitar from my parents and it was a lost cause after that! He loved that thing. We did manage to get him back at the end to open a gift of tons of clothes from my sister, but then he just wanted to put them all on. However the highlight of the morning seemed to be the pop up tunnel fort system my brother and sister in law gave him because he, Haley, Keelie and Tim, of course, played with it before the little ones all crashed from Christmas morning exhaustion.

That afternoon my mom made her traditional lunch of prime rib and garlic mashed potatoes and we rested and hung out for a bit before we had to pack up and head out to North Georgia for my sister in laws wedding.

Here's a few pics of our wonderful Christmas Morning!

gather round ye children come...

These are the very first words sung in the most amazing and blessing filled concert I have ever attended. Zach did a post about Andrew Peterson, a singer/songwriter, awhile ago when he came to Conyers. Every November/December he tours doing his Christmas concert, Behold the Lamb of God. If you have never heard it you must go to his site immediately and order the CD. You will not want to listen to anything else over Christmas!!!


Zach and I saw him in Atlanta in '06, Augusta in '07 and decided it was time to go to his show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, the original Grand Ol' Opry for those of you who didn't know. The show there is like none other on the tour. He has amazing special guest musicians (there is definitely not a shortage of those in Nashville) who play with the original tour group. This year Ron Block, who plays with Allison Kraus, Michael Card, who was just a totally different caliber of musician, and Stuart Duncan, who apparently is an amazing fiddle/violinist, plus a few others who I can't remember/didn't know. Plus the people who travel with him all the time are awesome like Andy Gullahorn, Jill Phillips, Andrew Osenga, and Bebo Norman (my fave!!!!)

OK so enough name dropping! Anyway the four of us (mays and moons) drove up to Nashville last Thursday afternoon to see the show that night and then spent Friday walking around downtown Nashville and then headed to the Grand Ol' Opry area to shop, eat, hangout before heading back to Conyers that evening. It was a whirlwind trip but oh so worth it!!!!!!!! In the words of Justin, "I may never be able to watch a concert anywhere else!"

The Ryman during intermission.
The acoustics in this place were UNBELIEVABLE!

Zach and me after the concert.
Yes I know there's a prominent baby belly there.

Steph and Justin after the concert.
Her baby belly is more well hidden!

The next day walking around downtown

Santa, the Square and CCC

We've had many Christmassy celebrations already and there's still 8 more days to go!!

Last Saturday Zach, Micah and I headed to downtown Covington to see Santa. Micah actually recognizes a Santa when he sees one which is really funny and cute we're working on recognizing baby Jesus too but there's not as many of those floating around on signs, stores, windows, tv, etc!

Micah seemed really excited on the way so we thought there was a chance he'd actually sit with him but no no no! Instead Micah and I got to hang out on Santa's chair while he peeked over the side. It's really not that big a deal to me or Zach if we have a good Santa picture, it's just fun to do.

Sarah, Micah and Santa

We ran into Matt, Leslie, Isabella and William at Santa's Workshop (Isabella wasn't keen on ol' Santa either) and decided to head to the square downtown to take some pictures. Isabella and Micah were so freakin' cute staring at the monster Christmas tree which made for some super cute pictures.

Father and Son walking downtown

Wow, what a big tree!


Once they saw their reflections in the ornaments picture time was over!

Sunday we had our church Christmas party. There was lots of yummy food and good company. I think finding/being led to CCC is the best thing that's happened to us since moving to Conyers. I can't imagine a more wonderful church family to have around you!!!

These were the coolest glasses.
The lights looked like snowflakes when you wore them.

Caught in the act!


We're cute too!


The most amazing small group ever

sprinkles, sprinkles, everywhere

Yay for Christmas cookies! It's my families turn for Christmas this year and I can't wait because I know there will be tins of cookies lined up on the counters and one of them better be filled with chocolate covered peanut butter cracker sandwiches!!!!

Two years ago (pre-Micah) I did major holiday baking because that was the gift we gave out. I have given up the major holiday baking until my children are somewhat older. Taking care of Micah is tiring enough without busting out all the ingredients, scaring him half to death with the mixer and then cleaning all the mess up! I'll just wait until they all can help with it.

However I did want to do something so I made some sugar cookies and Micah (and I) decorated them. He was so darn cute with all those sprinkles. At first he was a little cautious, but by the end he was shaking those sprinkle jars like crazy. He also loved to veto the colors himself. He'd be staring at them all and say green....no, pink....no, orange.....orange and shake the orange everywhere then he repeated the process with other colors. I haven't eaten any because I tried just a little of the icing and it was so sweet my pregnant self got sick, but they sure look cute!

Cautious sprinkling

Crazy Sprinkling

Girl's Weekend

This past weekend I went to Helen with 5 girl friends, some of whom I've known since elementary school. We had such a great time, we are planning to make it a yearly thing, however in the future it will be in late summer or fall because it was soooo cold! At least cold to a bunch of south Alabama girls!!

Once we got to the cabin we had a great time but it was quite an adventure at first. We finally got on the road about 9:00 pm after meeting up in Atlanta, but as soon as we were on the exit ramp traveling onto 85 North the car I was in ran over something and I heard a very unfavorable noise coming from the back tire. Oh yeah, in the first 5 minutes of the trip we got a flat tire. There were three of us in the car plus an adorable 7 month old boy and all of our stuff, not to mention the fact that none of us have changed a tire, let along on the side of an interstate in dark 30 degree weather...NOT FUN!

After about 2 1/2 hours of waiting, sitting, unloading, reloading, staying warm we were on our way. I would go into the entire ordeal but if you want to know you'll just have to ask personally because it would take FOREVER to write! We finally made it to the cabin at 12:50 am, dragged our things inside and promptly went to bed.


The next morning we woke up not so bright and early and headed to downtown Helen around lunch time. I had been there once before in the summer and had an ok time, but Christmas Helen was definitely more fun. There was a brass band playing in the middle of town, Santa Claus visiting children, horse drawn carriages, and decorations everywhere!!! We looked at the river, ate lunch, walked around the shops and took pictures. It was cold cold cold but it was very fun!

Diana, Me, April, Brandi, Briana, Kristen and baby Eli

Later that evening we went home to watch the SEC Championship Game. The majority of us are Auburn fans so we were pulling for those Gators to beat Bama!!

After the game we did our Christmas Ornament Swap...it started off tame but got good in the end which is hard to do with such a small crowd. I love my cute 'candy' ornament.

It really was a great weekend and thankfully my wonderful husband had a boys weekend with Micah so I could go!!!

Grinch and Scrooge Update

Hello all! Thanks for your comments/opinions on the Grinch and Scrooge issue. I'm going to share with you my opinion real quick and then link you to the original question and answers.

Overall I have to go with Scrooge as being the meaner one. Scrooge lived day to day life surrounded by other people and made an active decision each day to be as unloving as possible.

However my biggest sympathy goes to the Grinch. Now I'm talking cartoon/book Grinch not Jim Carrey Grinch. That poor green man lived his entire life up on a hill judging people not realizing that he was the one being hurt the most. They paid him no mind even when he stole everything he thought was precious to them.

The big winners in both stories here are the Cratchitts and the Whoos though. Wow what an amazing example of unconditional love and grace. Even after Scrooge screws him out of a good salary forcing him to live in poverty and for one child to remain lame he thanks him at their Christmas dinner and continues to wish him well. and the Whoos (cartoon whoos not stupid spend tons of money on crap whoos) knew that presents were not what Christmas was all about.

The 'semi'- official results!!

Who's Worse...

Scrooge or The Grinch?

I heard a very interesting discussion on the radio today. Apparently someone did a study by asking 3 different people, a judge, a minister and a cop, who was worse Scrooge or The Grinch. Each man was required to look at the lives of these two characters and decide who was worse or 'more' wrong in how they lived. Then after deciding they were then to tell whose redemption at the end of the story was bigger.

I would love to hear your opinion on the matter and then I will update the post and tell you what the results were found.

It's Beginning...

to look a lot like Christmas!

OK so Thanksgiving is officially over so now I can think about Christmas. I refuse refuse refuse to think about it before Thanksgiving. While Christmas is definitely my favorite holiday, (how can you not love a day that marks the most amazing gift ever given...our Savior!!) Thanksgiving is amazing to me. To stop and spend time with loved ones and concentrate on the blessings in your life...I mean seriously how often do we do that!

I am not a black Friday shopper...it's way to stressful and I don't go gift shopping without an organized list of ideas. If I did there would be lots of wandering around stores and way too much money being spent. So we are starting off our Christmas season in a different way, by cleaning the house of fall decorations and rearranging furniture in order to fit the fabulous REAL tree. Also we are attending our first Christmas concert of the year. Zach and I are going to three different ones this year. Mike Kinnebrew's in Macon, Andrew Peterson's in Nashville and Inside Out's in Conyers where my handsome man will be using his own musical talents.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are gearing up for a fabulous Christmas season.

a perfect 27

Very few times in life do you picture an event in your head and it actually works out that way. This weekend I had the perfect birthday day in mind and it definitely came true.

Saturday was my 27th birthday. It sounds old just because it's so close to 30 but it doesn't bother me...yet! I wanted a relaxing, low key birthday and got just what I wanted. Zach let me sleep in and I woke up to the smell of pancakes...yummy! Micah, Zach and I ate breakfast and then I opened my presents. Zach got me a North Face pullover and had 4 of our family pictures enlarged and framed ( I knew exactly what I was getting because I helped pick it out online but still it's always better in person!)

When we started figuring out where to hang the pictures it just didn't seem to work out. I really wanted them in the kitchen so we finally rearranged the furniture to fit them on the wall. This was my first big rearrangement on my own, but with Zach's great table idea I think it turned out well. Here's a shot of the new arrangement and a close up of our beautiful pics.


After breakfast we headed to Sports Authority to exchange my pullover for a different size and then I went to get a manicure and pedicure (courtesy of my parents' gift of bday money) while Zach headed home with Micah. If money allowed it I think this would be a monthly treat. It's just so relaxing!!

I made it home just in time to watch the Auburn/Georgia game at 12:30. While eating wings we watched the game until the 2nd quarter when our power went out! boo! For the next hour Zach and I each had one ear piece and listened to the game through the crappiest radio feed imaginable. By the end of the 3rd quarter the power was back on. We ended up losing, of course, but I have to say it was the best loss we played all season so we focused on that.

Later that evening some of our closest friends were able to come over to grill out, watch football and make smores!

Thanks Zach, Micah and everyone else for a fabulous day!

Contest

cruisin'

I have been wanting to blog this picture for a couple weeks but kept forgetting about it. A few weekends ago Micah and I went down to Enterprise to visit my family and I was helping host a baby shower for one of my best friends since 2nd grade!

We had an absolutely fabulous weekend!!! Micah went to the high school football game with my parents and had a ball eating boiled peanuts, watching the band, and screaming "A-ball YAY!" The next day we went to a fall festival with my brother David, his wife Christina, and my niece Haley. Which was also fun, especially the tractor parade which they both enjoyed immensely.

Sunday night we went over to David's to play on Haley's swingset and she so generously gave Micah a spin in her new Mustang Convertible she got for her birthday. He LOVED it! She drove and he worked the radio while they did their best to run us all over. I'm so glad that Micah will have cousins his age to play with from now til forever!

Happy Halloween

So the big bummer is we did not get good Halloween pictures. Somehow we lost our minds and forgot to take one of Micah and his whole costume...not quite sure how that happened. Maybe I can blame this on pregnancy too!! I'm hoping Leslie or Stephanie got a good one of him that I can add later.

Even though you can't see it very well Micah was super cute as Charlie Brown. He got to wear his costume to 3 different events. Last Monday was the Annual Younglife Llama-ween but it was SOOOOOO cold that he had a big puffy coat and hat on over his costume. However his hat had llamas on it so at least he matched the theme. He hung out with Zach there for a while in the cold while his chicken of a mother sat with Matt, Leslie, Isabella and William in their warm van watching the festivities through the window!

Micah with Zach (as Dwight)

Thursday his class at CMC had dress up day so off Charlie went again holding his snoopy stuffed animal as tight as he could.

Friday night, actual Halloween, we had some friends over for a low key Halloween party. We passed out candy to the trick or treaters, ate yummy soups and cupcakes and played some games. It was a fun night!! Micah has yet to go trick or treating, mainly because I'm a mean mama and am not going to let him eat the candy, but maybe next year we'll start adding that to the plans!

Charlie and Little Red Riding Hood getting ready for dinner

Devouring dessert

Leah Grace Bermudez

Zach and I became an uncle and aunt again yesterday, but this time it was on the May side of the family.

Zach's sister Jessica and her husband Tony had their little girl yesterday afternoon in Statesboro, GA.

Leah Grace Bermudez 8 lbs 9 ozs 20.5 inches long and a head full of dark dark dark dark hair!

We are traveling down there Saturday to meet her for the first time.

Congrats Jess and Tony...we love you!!

playing hooky

well sorta. Zach has the day off today (yay!) because he had to work a ridiculous amount the weekend my sister was here. We have taken full advantage of the day so far.

We started with a healthy breakfast at Waffle House...yum! Micah ATE UP some scrambled eggs and hash browns. He also managed to take everything off the table and put it on the seat next to him. Then we came back and did a quick house clean up and packed a lunch for the park.

We went to Turner Lake Park for the first time. I don't know how we have lived here for 4 years and not known there was a park/lake/playground/walking trail not 10 minutes from us. Micah and Daisy had a blast walking in the woods and feeding the ducks by the lake...well Daisy just watched while wishing she could jump in the water and chase them. We played for a long time on the playground and Micah went down the big twisty slide all by himself. He's so big.

We didn't bring our camera so I don't have any pictures to share, but I have to admit it was very nice to just relax and enjoy the day instead of thinking 'did I get a picture of that yet?' or saying "Micah please be still for one second and smile!"

Alrighty...it's nap time at the 'ol May house...nighty night!

Ever Wonder?

If you are a mother you know that sometimes it is necessary to leave your adorably cute and impressionable child home alone with their father. Every time I wonder what will go on in my absence. I'm never worried about the safety of my child I'm just curious about what they will do to pass the time. When I came home from bible study Wednesday night Zach showed me a picture.

After seeing this I decided that sometimes it's just better to not know!!!!

Southern Belle Farm

Pumpkin patch here we come! My sister Jennifer, her husband Chris and my niece Keelie (or ferfer, dis, and Kiki as Micah calls them) came to visit for the weekend. We all went and visited Southern Belle Farm on Saturday and had a great time. It was a MILLION times better than the pumpkin patch we visited last year. There was so much more to do and the weather was great!We started the visit with the pumpkin patch...of course. Micah loved picking up the little baby pumpkins and the gourds, though he said ewwwww everytime he saw the gourds with bumps all over them.They had great set ups for picture taking with beautiful fall flowers and wagons and tractors. Unfortunately after Micah sat on the tractor once he did not want to get up. We finally dragged him away to go see the animals and thankfully that seemed to distract him enough.


We headed to the kiddie corral to see the cows and donkeys and Micah and Zach took a trip down the slide. I'm pretty sure Zach had more fun than Micah because when we saw another slide later Micah immediately started shaking his head and saying no, no, no!

They also had these cool bike/cart things to ride around a track so Micah and Zach gave them a spin.
We didn't get brave enough to drag two toddler/infants through the corn maze but on the way to go look at it we passed the corn husk air guns. We each took our three shots at the targets and Zach won a free drink! yay for me! After a quick lunch at the concession stand we watched the pig races. Micah liked it ok but wasn't interested enough to warrant making him stand in one place so it was off to the tractor again :)

The last stop of the day was the cow train. As soon as Zach sat in it with Micah he burst into tears and wanted to GET OUT! Keelie braved the trip though and had fun and Micah enjoyed waving to the train as it left and said bye about a hundred times so all was well.
If you haven't been to a pumpkin patch yet I definitely recommend Southern Belle...we will be returning their next year for sure!

firefighting ghost

EXHAUSTION! That is all I can say. This baby has wiped me out! That plus taking care of the other one. I admit I am pitiful when I don't feel good which definitely doesn't help matters but...man alive. I will keep my complaining to a minimum though mainly because it sucks out my energy and it's not the right thing to do of course :)

Today, except for one minor incident, I have felt pretty good. Good enough to do all the laundry, clean a bathroom and make dinner. Wow what a feat...ha! I also got a super cute picture of Micah. He took the liner from his hamper out of the laundry basket while I was folding clothes and then hopped on his winnie the pooh fire truck. I was planning on making him a Charlie Brown costume for Halloween but maybe a firefighting ghost is the way to go!