The Drama of the Spice Cake

On Saturday, the ward was having their annual Christmas party.  The week before I had volunteered to bake a spice cake.  Saturday came, I went in the morning for a teacher training session, and I ended up staying to help decorate the tables for the dinner.  I knew time was running low, so I called Spencer and asked him to bake the spice cake.  I thought a told him to just bake it and leave it alone, but he didn't hear that part.

So when I get home, the cake is on the platter (it looks mangled and nasty) and it coated in powerdered sugar.  I had wanted to come home and lightly sprinkle some powerded sugar over the top and make it look dainty and nice.  As you can see from the picture, it looks a little bit different!  So, I just took a deep breath and let it go.  After all, we are just going to eat it and it won't matter what it looks like then anyway.

When we get to church, Spencer takes the cake to the kitchen and announces that HE baked the cake and that I had absolutely no part in it.  (He is such an awesome husband!)  The party goes well.  A friend plays the violin and I play the cello.  We've been practicing the Christmas hymns and spend the party playing music for everyone.  After the party, we go to pick up our cake and find that only 2 pieces have been cut.  I think, awesome..I have almost an entire cake to eat at home!!!  SCORE!!!!

On the drive home, I take a little piece, dip it lavishly in the powdered sugar, and take a super sugary bit.  It tastes a little weird, and not very sweet.  Then it hits me...this is not sugar!!!  This tasted like FLOUR!!!  Spencer and I start cracking up laughing!!!  He explains that it was in a little bag.  I rack my brain and realize, it's not flour.  It's CORN STARCH!!!  We figure that's why there were only two pieces missing.  They started to serve it and realized it tasted gross!

But...the story is not yet over!!!  When I get home, I realize the bag with "sugar" was LABLED!  It said CORN STARCH on the bag!!!  And...those two missing pieces.  The lady (Terri Luc) who worked the kitchen had cut two yummy large slices of cake to take home and share with her husband!!!  They didn't care for the corn starch spice cake either!!!

I hope you had a good solid laugh and that you keep having a wonderful and Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Time

For Christmas this year, we decided to just go to one of the stands by the side of the road rather that make a huge outing to get a tree.  After all, it's cold, the kids are young (and were sick), and the most fun for me is actually decorating the tree.  So we got a really nice tree and set it up in the brick play-room.

Here are the 3 kids after we put the lights up.

Me, Makezie, and Isaiah with the pretty lights.

Our local YMCA had a breakfast with Santa.  We went.  Makenzie was SUPER excited to talk to Santa.  On the drive home, she said that he felt cuddily!

Hailey was much more cautious.  She wouldn't go up to him, but she allowed him to come down to her.  Isaiah was just engaged with all the beard and fur trim.

That night was the ward Christmas program.  Spencer walked around with the 3 kids while I was playing the Christmas hymns on my cello.  So...we have no pictures from that party!  But, it was fun to play the cello again and the kids had a great time.

Now all my major commitments are over and we can relax and enjoy the Christmas season.  We have all our inside decorations up and will decorate the outside this weekend.  And, we still have to buy presents.  But that part is fun!

Life at the Everitt House

Makenzie and Hailey are 100% all girl!  Since their poor mother does't wear make-up, they have to find alternate sources for their own beauty needs.  Their favorite source is the bucket of markers.  And although they say they are washable, some colors do not wash off skin very easily!

Hailey's favorite phrase is "Me me do it by myself!"  I asked her why she liked doing everything by herself.  She said, "Because I'm two."  Here is Haile's attempt at putting her PJ shirt on by herself.  She was MAD when she couldn't get it to pull down properly!

After a full day, they like taking super bubble baths.  I have a jacuzzi tub, and if you run the jets with soap in the water you get super, duper bubbles!

And then there is Isaiah.  He can comando crawl like a pro.  While we were eating dinner, Isaiah pulled all of these buckets down all by himself.  Then he spun around flapping his arms and legs around in the middle of the toys.  He was having a great time.

And that is life at the Everitt House!!!

Thanksgiving

My brother hosted Thanksgiving at his house this year.  Spencer, the kids, and I drove up early Thursday morning.  We hung out, napped, and ate a DELICIOUS meal.  My mom did an awesome job on the turkey!  Friday morning we took our family pictures.  Our family photographer was in Augusta this year, so we settled for second best--me.  But they turned out okay.  Here are my parents with all 8 grandkids.

Here are my 3 kids.

After pictures, we went to the Bristol Caverns.  It was a large tour group, but we had a fun time exploring the little cave system.  Hailey fell sound asleep on my sister's shoulder.  Isaiah had a great time flirting with whoever would look at him.  Makenzie was too fast for me to keep up with, but had a good time with her cousins.

After the caverns, we had lunch at Burger King and then headed to the Bristol Motor Speedway.  They had an ice skating rink set up and we all went ice skating.  It was the first time for all of the cousins, so that was really fun.  The adults spent most of their time helping the kids not to fall too hard and then to get up again.  Michelle, Ryan and I all had memorable wipe-outs.  Hailey LOVED ice skating.  As soon as we got any speed going, she would say "WEEEEEEE".  It was a fun-filled day!