June Archives | Page 3 of 3 | Midwestern At Heart

Unicorn French Macarons with a “raw” Cake Batter Filling

Did you know and realize my little girl is going to be 4 next Tuesday. How in the world did that happen? Someone please tell me and help slow down time! It’s flying by sooooooooooo fast. I remember as a kid they said it would but dang! Time really needs to slow down. I remember as a little kid how we wanted time to speed up so we could get our driver’s licenses, graduate high school, be of age to vote and drink and the list goes on. When I got to 25 I was done… that meant my car insurance dropped and I was okay with that. Then I wanted time to just slow down… but unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

With Abug’s impending birthday (I use those big words for my friend Jody haha… Hi Jody) it was time to start thinking about and planning for her birthday party. Lately, she’s been all about unicorns. This has been an ongoing thing for oh I don’t know… since before Christmas. My dad found a pony we could make into a unicorn for her for Christmas but it was in Iowa, at least 6-8 hours away and we didn’t have time to drive up and buy him. I’m kind of okay with that… she does have Aloha after all. But that’s another story for another day… (more…)

Piña Colada Cake

I feel like I fell off the face of the earth last week. Last week was such a blur… I spent all day Tuesday making French Macarons and all day Friday making a Unicorn Cake. More on both of those experiences later… but first, let’s back up and look at the Piña Colada Cake I made a couple weeks ago. Boy was it yummy!

So why did I make it and how did it come to be? Good question! So I mentioned with the strawberry dulce de leche cake that I made, my friend Dan hit me up about making his wife a birthday cake for her birthday. Wow… is that a repeat. haha! Anyway… when I asked him what she liked, he told me chocolate and coconut. So I went on the hunt for something with either or both. I then proceeded to send him about 10 different cake recipes. (more…)

Strawberry Dulce de Leche Cake

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Dan hit me up about doing a cake for his wife for her birthday. He requested we bring it to dive club meeting last week. I said, okay… any ideas. He said no. I said, okay what does she like or what doesn’t she like? He told me chocolate and coconut. That immediately made me think of German Chocolate Cake. But I wasn’t sure, so I went on a hunt for cakes.

That lead me to send him 10 different recipe ideas. Okay, now, which one? He narrowed my 10 down to 2. One was a Cannoli Cake and the other was a Strawberry Dulce de Leche cake from Life Love and Sugar. I looked back and forth and finally decided on the Strawberry Dulce de Leche cake. (more…)

Funfetti Birthday Cake

Last week I described the cake on the left of the above picture. If you need a reminder, that’s a Chocolate Dulce de Leche cake. Yum! It really was an exceptional cake and I was extremely pleased with how it turned out. Although… maybe the bright birthday candles on it look weird… who knows.

Right now I’m sitting here watching recorded shows of Best Baker America. Their challenge was a mind-bending cake with Vanilla being present. Looking at my cakes above… I fail. Oh well! haha.

But today, let’s focus on that Funfetti cake on the right. And wow, there’s a lot of thoughts covered above in just a short period of time. haha… some days that’s how my mind goes. My husband jokes that I am the queen of Random! (more…)

Let’s Dish

Also known as… Let’s Chat :).

The picture above showed up in my Facebook newsfeed this morning. Now it wasn’t a still photo, it was a video, but it wouldn’t let me add the video, so you get a screenshot.

Those words, “Never stop trusting God and His plans.” Wow, they ring soooooooo true right now. Since December there has been a lot of ifs, ands, or buts in my future and it’s really been stressing me out. I’ve mentioned it a few times but said how much of a hypocrite I am because I wasn’t ready to talk but was asking for prayers. That’s the thing that annoys me the most when people do that. Yet, here I was, doing just that. Shame on me.

But one aspect that I’ve been dealing with, I’m finally ready to talk about. I told you I would and I’m going to try and do this as openly but as honestly as I can without whatever. I’m not really sure, I don’t want it to sound like I’m petty and childish or something. But… Here we go. Bear with me! I’ll give you some back details too. It’ll help fill in some of the dots missing.

Backstory

When my parents bought the property they (we) live on, we became really good friends with the neighbors. At that time, we lived in a rental house just on the west side of the property. That house shouldn’t have had tenants living in it 20+ years ago, yet we did and more people have since then. Another story for another day.

Around 2009 he was losing the house to the bank. At that time, my dad told me I should have bought it. They wanted something like $67K for it. I was afraid then, being a single girl, that I couldn’t make the payments. The guy I was dating wasn’t close to even proposing to me and I wasn’t about to live with him, unwed. So I had no one to help with the bills. Needless to say, someone else bought it. Looking back, I should have bought it, but with what I made at the time, I couldn’t do it and didn’t want to get myself into a bind.

Jump forward a few years

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#BlogMay 2018

It’s that time of the month… that one where I discuss the top posts of the month and the year. I just can’t help it. I get fascinated by this stuff. And it’s fun to have a record to look back on! So without further ado, let’s get this show on the road!!

Putting it all Together…

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Hand me a blanket, it’s a woppin 94 degrees

Okay, maybe not exactly what you need, maybe you need a pool or a cool shower or summer clothes but hey, maybe it got your attention and that’s what I was going for :).

Travel back with me a few years to the year 2007, late January. I just happened to be with my mom one Saturday morning (or maybe afternoon, I don’t remember) and we were at a quilt store. Now she doesn’t quilt but she does sew and she was working on something for me, but I can’t remember what and we were here looking for some material to round out whatever it was she was making me. So as I was walking around I saw the coolest material. It was (now don’t judge me) girls in bikinis on motorcycles. They looked like European made motorcycles. I just knew I had to do something with this material so we talked about it and a lady overheard us talking. Well, she said she was making her daughter a quilt out of similar material but it was hot guys with 6-packs, jeans, cowboy hats & boots standing next to old Chevy pickup trucks. I was intrigued and she happened to have the quilt with her so she showed me. I knew right then and there I was going to make my first quilt. Well actually I wanted to make the guys for myself but they said they couldn’t keep in the guy material. They also had male construction workers and female construction worker’s material. Not really my cup of tea but I was able to get on-line to this website and found the guys and ordered some. Anyway here are the 2 quilts I made.

First up, my very first, the ladies:

Some of the ladies here at work saw this one and thought I needed to enter it in a quilt show… so oddly enough, I did. My grandma hand quilted it and went around every lady & bike so they stood up too. This is just pictures of the top. I wanted to enter my male quilt, but it wasn’t quilted by the time the show came around. They told me at the show that it got A LOT of laughs and blushing older ladies. I could imagine b/c it’s wild compared to most quilts. Just think, my 70+-year-old grandma hand quilted it.

Now the male quilt I made myself:

I apparently have a thing for half-naked people quilts b/c I now have material to make my friend Evelyn one and PC. Evelyn’s will be Hawaiian guys in swim trunks with surfboards and PC’s is girls in short shorts with crop tops with Old European Sportscars.

I’ve been so busy with this wedding planning and house remodeling. I even bought enough of the Hawaiian guy material so I could make myself an apron :). But shhh don’t tell PC! 😉

Peace, Love, and um… cold weather (or hot) 🙂

Midwestern At Heart

June