Mele Kalikimaka!

Our local church group had a Christmas Luau this last Saturday. I am on the Activities Committee and volunteered to make a "Roasted Pig" cake. I've been inspired by friends (Charly mainly...see her blog for more cakes) and by watching Ace of Cakes, a show on the Food Network.

I think it turned out pretty good for my first attempt with fondant! I crushed some cinnamon graham crackers to make sand around the base. I used three cake boxes, two boxes of fondant, and one snack package rice crispy treat (for the nose and mouth). You can't really see it, but it also has a little curly tail!

It was a BIG hit at the party. Everyone wanted a "piece of the pig."

Now they want me to teach a class for the ladies on how to make a pig cake. What have I gotten myself into? Oh well. I had fun and will definitely do more some time but only for special occasions. hee hee

The story of the Coat Rack Christmas Tree

Once upon a time...two young ladies, named April Ann and Lacey Lynn, met while at school. They became wonderful friends very quickly, even though they liked different things. April Ann was very smart, like to clean things, and hated seafood. Lacey Ly6nn was very goofy, kind of messy, and loved seafood.

April Ann had a extra room in her house and Lacey Lynn needed a place to live. So they agreed to be roommates and Lacey Lynn moved her clothes, her bed, her dresser, her toothbrush, and her coat rack into the extra room at April Ann's house.

They had fun listening to music, playing games with friends, and cooking together.

Christmas time was coming soon and April Ann and Lacey Lynn wanted to decorate a Christmas tree. Lots of trees were for sale in town, but April Ann did not want to get a real tree because the pine needles would make the floor messy. And Lacey Lynn did not want a real tree because the sticky sap would get all over her fingers. Besides, they had no extra money to buy a tree.

Now, you must know that although April Ann and Lacey Lynn were very different, they were both very creative and liked to use their imaginations. "We could MAKE a Christmas tree," said April Ann, "but what can we use?"

They looked around at the things in the house to see what they could use. "How about my coat rack?" said Lacey Lynn. "It can be the tree trunk."

"We can use my hula hoop for the bottom," April Ann replied.

They gathered some string, cut three equal pieces, and tied it to the top of the coat rack. They they tied it to the top of the coat rack. Finally, they tied the other end of each string to the hula hoop until the hoop and the coat rack were in the shape of a tree.
"It doesn't look much like a Christmas tree yet. What about ornaments?" said Lacey Lynn.

Being the smart young lady she was, April Ann ran to her bedroom and came back with her hands full of jingle bell earrings and some Christmas colored ribbon. "We can make our own ornaments!" April Ann said excitedly as she hung the items on the tree.

Lacey Lynn thought of some things she had that would make great decorations for the tree too. She ran to her room and returned with a plastic wreath pin and two candy canes to put on the tree.

They each grabbed any little thing that would hang and put it on the coat rack. It looked a little silly, but they were having fun decorating.

A friend named Charyl came by and saw the make-shift tree and said, "I have some Christmas lights you can use. That will really make it shine." So they wrapped the lights around the strings holding the hula hoop in place. Then another friend, named Darin, saw the tree and said, "I have some apples you can hang on your tree", so they tied the apples to the tree as well.

Slowly but surely, the coat rack began to look more and more like a real Christmas tree. Finally, they all stepped back and looked at the beautiful Coat Rack Christmas Tree they created and smiled.

April Ann and Lacey Lynn continued to add new ornaments to the tree each Christmas. Every year since then, the Coat Rack Christmas Tree has gotten bigger and better. It now has several hula hoop layers, beautiful green garland, hundreds of lights, and is topped with a beautiful star.

The years passed, and April Ann and Lacey Lynn grew up and had families of their own. But they still make ornaments with the children to put on their very own Coat Rack Christmas Tree. Even though it started as a simple coat rack, it became as bright and brilliant as any Christmas tree there ever was, because of two young ladies and their wonderful friends.

Written and Illustrated by: L.L. Smith

The last few weeks...

The last few weeks have been CRAZY-busy around here. (Thus, the lack of blog entries.) Thanksgiving was good. We had Josh's dad, Dave, here from Oklahoma for a few days. We have done Thanksgiving with him for a few years now because Josh's favorite holiday is Thanksgiving...food and football!! Dave loves to watch football with us, especially if Texas is playing Oklahoma. (We're not talking about Oklahoma right now though.)




So, I made a turkey, three pies (pumpkin, apple, and a cherry one for the neighbors), candied yams, squash, Sister Schubert's rolls, and Josh and Dave made their two pans of stuffing. All of this for three people and Lincoln. Don't judge me... hee hee

Lincoln loved having turkey and all the fixin's. He really loves sweet potatoes, so the yams were a big hit, as well as the rolls. I tried to sneak some veggies in there too, which he liked.


By the time Dave had to leave, we were all stuffed and in need some stretchy pants. It was good to see him though and he had fun with Lincoln.


Now I'm working on our Church Christmas Luau this Saturday. I'm making a luau pig cake. I've been inspired by all those cake shows on t.v., so we'll see how mine turns out.

I hope EVERYONE had a wonderful Thanksgiving and will have a JOYOUS Christmas season.
Lots of Love!!!

"Twilight"- Schmilight!

*For those of you who have read the Twilight books and loved them, you may disagree with me on this point and probably should stop reading this right now.*

I read the Twilight books and actually liked the first one, although I thought the content was MUCH too mature for its intended target audience of tweens and teenagers. But since it was entertaining, I read the second book which I thought was not as good as the first and lacked the amount of action of the first. Although I wasn't thrilled with the second, I still read the third.

Now, I don't know about you, but if I start a book (or movie) I have a very hard time NOT finishing it, no matter how bad it may be (except in cases of vulgar language). Half way through the third book, I actually WANTED the lead character, Bella, to die! I wanted her to get caught by the bad vampire and die. I was sick of her incessant whining and pining over her two "love interests." I guess it was indicitive of a 17 year old girl in "love", but it still was really annoying.

But as I said before, I felt almost obligated to finish the series, so I read the fourth and final book and that somewhat redeemed the series for me. Overall I am not a fan of the books and even less of a fan of the upcoming movie(s).

What makes this "Twilight" craze harder for me to watch is that fact that young girls, 10, 11, & 12 years old have read these books over and over again; a book that I feel is much too mature for them. I guess this makes me an old fuddy-duddy, but I just can't believe that responsible parents are allowing their young daughters to read about a girl, with almost no parental supervision, whose boyfriend (although a vampire) stays over night in her room with her, unbeknownst to her clueless father.

And the other thing I completely don't understand is how a book, that is targeted to girls under the legal driving age, can be so popular with 40 year old women! Last Sunday at church, someone passed out a flyer to announce they were all meeting tonight to attend the opening of the Twilight movie.

By the way, here is a recent review of "Twilight" from Screenit.com.....
"TWILIGHT" (2008) (Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson)(PG-13)Drama/Horror: After relocating to a small town to live withher dad, a teenager meets and ends up falling for a teenage vampire who's torn between his love for her and his appetitefor her blood. Based on the novel of the same name, this is bad in a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" sort of way. There's purposefully overwrought teen angst, melodrama and soap opera trappings, a languid pace, mediocre to often bad direction, bland acting, really cheesy special effects, and a story that should have had a stake run through it due to being quite trite. All of which means the film is a chore to sit through, especially in its 120 or so minute incarnation. Rated PG-13, the film contains a little profanity, sexually related material (comments, brief fooling around, one girl showing a lot of cleavage),vampire-related violence, unsettling, suspenseful and/or scary moments, alcohol content, and a drug comment made as a metaphor."

It just strengthens my resolve that Hollywood is running out of good ideas and simply CAN NOT produce a movie that is free from sex, violence, drugs, and bad language, despite the non-R rating. I guess I'll just have to finish writing my movie I dreamed up a few years ago. I've had 110 pages written for years. Maybe I'll have time to finish it now that I'm home more....Nah. Who am I kidding?

Laughter is Contagious!!!

Turn up your speakers and get ready for a giggle!
It's little things like this that MAKE MY DAY!

The first of many shiners!

Yesterday, Lincoln and I were beginning our daily walk to the apartment mail boxes when I stopped to lock the car door of my truck. I heard a loud THUD and looked down at my feet to see Lincoln face down on the pavement. I scooped him up and it took him a second to realize that he was hurt, then once the pain kicked in he screamed bloody murder! I figure he must have lost his footing on a small patch of grass that is sloped slightly. He got a pretty good-sized goose egg on his head but the "road rash" on his eye is what looks horrible.

I tried to put an ice pack on it to try to reduce the swelling, but he really won't sit still. So I ended up with a cold rag while we watched Elmo. That seemed to work. I've also put a little Homeopathic First Aid Ointment on it to help it heal.

Does anyone have any suggestions for an alternate method of cooling? This morning, his eyelid was so swollen, he looked like Rocky Balboa after the 5th Rocky movie!

My poor kiddo!