Cake Bites!

A new friend of ours turned 22 on Saturday, and I made a massive amount of red velvet cake bites to celebrate!

If you haven't eaten a cake bite, please believe me that one bite will change your life.

I know that I tend to exaggerate, but seriously. These are amazing. (The originator of this recipe is Bakerella - she does some pretty amazing things!)

Let me show you:

1) Mix up a batch of red velvet box cake mix. I love how bright the color is!



2) Bake the cake, and let it cool completely. Then break it into pieces and put it in a big bowl.

3) Add a whole jar of cream cheese frosting. Don't count the calories; just do it.

4) Mix the cake and the frosting together until they're completely combined.

5) Put the mixture in the fridge for about an hour, then roll into little balls. I put mine on parchment paper. Put these back in the fridge for another hour.

6) I put lollipop sticks in them to make them cute and easier to dip. Then I melted some Baker's chocolate and dipped away!

Warning: If you buy cheap almond bark and add green food coloring to it, bad things happen.

I don't want to talk about it.

7) Put the dipped cake bites back in the fridge to let the chocolate set up, and voila!

Instead of treaties with other countries, we should just offer them cake bites. Bin Laden would come out of hiding for these.

How does your garden grow?

How does my garden grow? I'm so glad you asked!

The green beans are growing beautifully - they are crispy and delicious and make life worth living.

I've been told I exaggerate.

I had a picture of strawberries to put here, but since I'm using my phone camera for all of these, it didn't turn out very well. I'm trying to pick the berries and flowers off so the roots can go deep for next year, but I did have the opportunity to sample one last night. Delicious, but really sour. Yikes.

Roma tomatoes! We have dozens on the plant right now. I'm so excited to spend a whole day in the coming weeks making tons of pasta sauce!

This, my friends, is what happens when you don't buy a lattice in time. Holy cow. Cucumber explosion!

Baby cucumbers!

This is the biggest of the gang so far - I anticipate being able to feed several third world countries with the amount of cucumbers that have taken over.

And of course, the herb garden. It kind of wimped out, except for the sage and parsley. The basil, lavender, thyme, and rosemary didn't really do very much. I was hoping to have enough basil to make enough pesto to last until Jesus comes back. But we don't actually have ANY basil. Rats.

Cake bite blog to follow! Have a lovely day!

Paige and Vanessa vs. The Weird Voice

So, the last two times our doorbell has been pushed, I have thought I heard a strange sound right after the actual doorbell sound. It goes like this:
"Ding ding dee-ding ding ding. Wah wah wah wah wah wah."
Just like the lady in Peanuts.
Literally, it was a voice.

So Vanessa and I went on a hunt. Where was this voice coming from? Was it coming from the sound box?

No, Becky's boyfriend cut the cords on that a couple months ago. It's now just there for decoration.

Was it in the tall cabinet?

Nope. But we're getting close.

Was it in the game cabinet?

Nope. But we're still warm.

The pantry?

Nope. That was too far away.

The back porch?

Definitely not.

Vanessa thought of looking in the island. I thought this was silly.

But look!

What's this?

We found it! This silly little box was saying, "Please replace tone battery."

Conquered. Little box, you will haunt our home no more.

Sweet Summertime

Two updates in one day! Incredible!
A lot of random things have happened to me this summer, so here's a quick update for all you faithful readers!

1) Vanessa moved in! Hopefully soon we will collaborate on a blog post. She has much better pictures than I do, and she definitely needs to get some pictures of her room up - it's awesome! I'm so glad to have her here! :-)

2) I got a new car. I traded in Shunganunga (my Jeep Liberty), which I loved, but cost me too much money....

...and I got Cecille, a 2010 Toyota Corolla. She is sleek, classy, and cost-efficient.

3) We had our first big storm of the year, which prompted Natalie and I to descend into the abyss known as the basement when the tornado sirens went off.

We almost decided we'd rather be taken by the tornado. Isn't this terrifying?

The winds knocked down a 15 foot long branch from a tree in the front yard.

Thankfully, my dad came to the rescue and hauled it off!

4) I turned 23 last Saturday. We had a party here with a bunch of sweet friends, and we partied til dawn. Almost. It was entirely too late. But so much fun!
Vanessa and Diana Martina collaborated to make me this beautiful cake. Thanks again, ladies!

5) This week I have the privilege of hanging out with this handsome guy.

Snickers! Love of my life. My family is out of town, so my favorite little dog and I are having some adventures.

Naps, mostly.

6) And lastly, Vacation Bible School is upon us. I am halfway through the week with a group of twenty 4-year-olds, and I'm exhausted. They are too cute, though - yesterday they did some painting during craft time, and they had to wear smocks.

Really, could they get any cuter?!

Have a great day!

Paige vs. The Last Day of School

I understand this happened two and a half blessed weeks ago, but I have a few pictures I wanted to post, so here you go!

Behold: The Scantron. Savior of all frazzled teachers during finals week. I may or may not have given it a hug.
I was delirious.
This puppy can grade 30 100-question multiple choice tests in less than a minute.

I had written "Buena suerte" on the board right before their *killer* final. It means "Good luck".
One student misread it and thought it said "Buena muerte", which means "Good death." He thought that was more appropriate (considering the difficulty of the test) and rewrote my message, complete with a drawing.

Here's a close-up of the skeleton's head. Death by Spanish. Whoops!

But despite the fact that I beat them into the ground with their final, they still love me! These are a couple messages left for me on my white board. I also got a couple really sweet notes.

A big shot of the whole board.

By the end of the day, nothing could make me happier than the message in this shot: "Grades have been submitted."

For the last time. :-)

It looks like an ordinary classroom, but if only these walls could talk!

Wow! What a year. What a blessing it was to have 147 students entrusted to me to teach and build up (and tease mercilessly). They challenged me, humbled me, and unbeknownst to them, sanctified me. I look forward to another year of educating young minds! :-)