Please...

...pray for Meredith, her family, and the doctor and his team tomorrow. She'll be having her second (more invasive) heart surgery starting at 5:30 in the morning.

If you missed the earlier posts:
Please Pray for Meredith
An Update on Meredith

Menu Plan Monday — October 19

I did very well sticking to the menu plan last week, as long as you don't count making the meals on the original nights they were planned for. The only think I didn't make was the Chicken Pot Pie, which will go on this week's menu.

Monday — Clean out the fridge and pantry. We still have some meat left from the Steak Burritos (which I'll probably do a separate post on this week since it was so good). We may have to scrounge around for some other things to go along with it.

Tuesday — Impossibly Easy Chicken Pot Pie. We're having small group at our house, so I need quick and easy. I'll have make-your-own sundaes with brownies for everyone afterwards. Oh, and I'm not making them dinner, just us.

Wednesday — There should be some leftover Pot Pie, and if there isn't enough I'll have to figure something else out to add with it.

Thursday — Black-Eyed Peas and Cornbread. This is just plain old comfort food when it starts getting cold. I just do the Jiffy cornbread from the box and add in some sugar to the mix. It really makes it good (there was a drawl to that last word). I'm probably going to have some complainers, so I'll try to make some biscuits or muffins too.

Friday — Sam's Club Pizza, but I won't get to enjoy it. I get to go to the Awana T&T girls' sleepover at church since I'm a leader. No woot, woot here. I'm not a sleepover girl, but I'm doing it anyway and putting on a brave, happy face for my Awana girls. They'll never know.

Saturday — I know it's cold, but I hope I can talk Hubby into grilling hamburgers on the grill. I'm not going to feel like doing much but crawling into my own bed.

Sunday — Eat out since we ate in all week!

Visit The Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

Corn Husk Doll

This time of year in Arkansas has fond memories for me. It consists of three words that Lora reminded me of in her post earlier today.

War Eagle Fair.

I've only been three times, but it is the most amazing thing I've been to. It's a shame to call it a craft fair, because it is so much more than that.

You start out by driving over steep, curvy roads to get into the beautiful depths of Arkansas in the middle of fall, just to park in a cow pasture. Then you have to make sure you don't walk through any cow gifts as you head to the four big circus tents that are just the start of your day.

As I remember it, there was at least one exhibit hall on this side of the water mill where the circus tents were located. The fair had gotten so large that it had crossed over the little one car bridge (that you walked on en masse with others as single rows of cars occasionally were) to where hundreds of individual exhibitors had their tents set up on the other side.

The first year Hubby and I went was 1990, before kids. I know my grandparents and aunt and uncle were there, but that's all I remember. If I pulled out the pictures I'd remember who else, but I'm too lazy.

My aunt loved Nan's Corn Husk Dolls and specifically took me to her booth in one of the large tents. She had me pick one out for myself. Of course I picked one that had a blue dress and a basket of kittens.

I can't put my hands on the card that came with her, but the part of Nan's story I remember is that her family was having trouble making ends meet and so she started making the corn husk dolls to sell. It was much more successful than they ever imagined.

My doll lives in the cabinet with my other dolls. They are all unique, but she's one of the ones that has a special story.

This post is linked to Show and Tell Friday hosted by Cindy at My Romantic Home.

Rainbow Cake

First, I have to give credit where credit is due. I first saw this cake over at MckMama's blog. She had a little shindig at her house and someone named Amanda brought the cake, she begged Amanda for the recipe seeing that everyone was begging her to get it, and she shared it. I tried it, it worked, and here it is.

Rainbow Cake

2 boxes of white cake mix
Food Coloring in six colors (I used Americolor Soft Gel Paste)

Frosting

4-8 oz packages of cream cheese
1 cup butter
5-6 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

You might want to have a third box of white cake mix on hand just in case.

To prepare the cake:

Prepare the first mix according to the package. Separate the prepared batter into three separate dishes. I ended up with a little over 1 1/2 cups per bowl with my batter. Add food coloring until you achieve the desired color (purple, blue, and green this time).

I'd recommend doing a really good grease and flour job on your pans, because I did it lightly the first time. I almost lost my first purple cake and I did lose my first green one. It was completely stuck to the bottom of the pan and was destroyed when I tried to get it out.

Cook according to package directions, but remember that you have a little less batter in each pan so you might not need to bake them as long. I almost forgot that part.

During the first box I broke one egg on the floor and one in the sink. Then I ended up destroying the green cake, which I didn't even know yet.

While the first three cakes were cooking I washed up my dishes and started working on the second cake mix. Before I could put the food coloring in I had already destroyed the green cake, so I did one of them green, one yellow, and one orange, although it should have been yellow, orange, and red.

Good thing I did an about-face and picked up that third box of white cake mix as an after thought on Monday night's grocery trip just in case.

(Then I started washing up my dishes again and made the third cake mix. During this wash-and-dry, Sparky dropped one of the heavy stoneware bowls and it broke, plus it nicked up the wood floor pretty good. What can you do but clean it up and keep on going and chalk it up to another Rainbow Cake casualty.)

I went ahead and made two red cakes and left one plain with the last batch. I decided if one red one was damaged I'd have another one to fall back on since I didn't have any more boxes of cake mix. And the red cake was the one that took the most food coloring to get it a deep enough color.

To make the frosting:

Mix your room temperature cream cheese and room temperature butter together well with your mixer. Add in the vanilla. Then slowly add in the powdered sugar one cup at a time, up to 5 cups. Taste the frosting and see if it's sweet enough for you, and if it's not, then add the other cup. Personally, I did the requisite tasting knowing all along I'd just add the other cup.

To assemble the cake:

Start by taking a large bread knife and leveling off the tops of the cakes (you can even tell in the picture where I did this). They need to be flat and level for this to work correctly. Then place the purple layer on your cake plate, place frosting on top, and spread it with a flat knife where it runs over the edge a little. Place the blue layer on top of the frosting, spread frosting on top where it runs over the edge, then smooth the frosing all the way around the edges (as if you had a two-layer cake).

You must now refrigerate the cake for about 2 hours for the frosting to set (or put it in the freezer for 1 hour if you have a place big enough). This is very important since the cake is heavy and the frosting is squishy at this point.

After you've waited the appropriate amount of time, put on the green layer, frost, yellow layer, frost, do the sides like before, and stick it in to firm up again for 2 hours. Then do the orange and red layers and you're done.

Except for anything fun you do on the top, like sticking 44 slim candles that leave ash all over the cake and table when Hubby blows them out.

Cut the cake, hopefully get some ooohs and aahs, thankyouverymuches, this is the best cake I've ever hads...

Just enjoy it, because it really is good!

Happy Birthday, Hubby!

You finally aren't that icky prime number 43 anymore. You're that nice, round, pretty 44.

Don't worry, I'll be there with you in a couple of months and a half.

Overheard from Hubby at our house tonight:

"That's the tallest cake I've ever seen." (Six inches to be exact.)

"I hope this doesn't set off the smoke detectors."


"Open the back door."

"Oh, I get it, you made this in honor of Jeff Gordon and the Rainbow Warriors." (Who?)

"The next time I'm an increment of 22 I'll be 66, and then 88. And then I'll be..."

...here I piped in probably dead.

I found the recipe for this rainbow cake over at MckMama's blog. I'll share the recipe with you tomorrow along with all the crazy casualties along the way.

If we don't get Hubby an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen I usually make him German Chocolate Cake, which is his favorite. I didn't find this out until we had been married for at least six years, maybe more.

And we had dated since the 9th grade. How could I not know that was his favorite cake? I'd spent lots of birthdays with him, and I have a good memory. I mean, I still remember Mr. Bergman from 9th grade and how he deducted two points from my grade every day I was late to class (and he didn't fall for the excuse that I had to get all the way from typing class at the other end of the 'L' to my locker and then to his class in five minutes), and how he deducted points for a word I used in an essay that wasn't a word (understandingness), but I still thought it was cool because it took up an entire line on wide-ruled paper, and how all these deductions cost me a whole letter grade one semester. Not bitter, just a good memory. So the point is, I don't ever remember having German Chocolate Cake in my life. That is, before I made one for him. You know, when I found out it was his favorite.

So this year when I saw the rainbow cake I knew it was time for something different. It was moist and yummy, and oh, so pretty. Even fun! What more could you ask for than that.

Have another great year, Hubby!

Organization — Fabric Cubes for Ikea Expedit System

If you've read my blog much at all, you know I have a love affair with Ikea.

If you didn't know that and really want to know, you can read about it here.
And here.
And here.
And even here.

I also have a love affair with all things cubbies. Here's a little look at the ones in Caboose's room.

And in sticking with my little theme-o-la, if you want to read about my sickening little thing with cubbies, you can read about them here.
And here.
And here.

Even though Ikea makes the most fantastic Expedit cubbies in the entire world (including wordless, picture-only directions for the entire world!), they do not make fabric cubes for their system. They make a multitude of baskets, plastic boxes, cardboard boxes, and even zippered fabric boxes, but not just plain old fabric cubes.

The cubbies that are sold at Target, Lowe's, Home Depot, etc., that we used to have in our military quarters (most of which were destroyed in this last move or by the rats in the storage facility) have fabric cubes. This is the size they are compared to the Ikea system:

Not such a great fit, but we've been using them in Caboose's room anyway since we had them.

I was looking through the Target ad from Sunday's paper, and I happened to have a $50 Target gift card I won from another blog (I did mention on my Menu Plan Monday post about being lucky lately). I saw these fabric cubes on sale for a plastic system called Itso. They appeared to be the right size, so I picked some up today. Here they are in Caboose's Ikea Expedit system.

The first time I put them in I had to squeeze the sides in on the bottom, but pretty much they are a perfect fit. I had Caboose take them out and put them in after I did, and the second time they went in easily.

I got four blue and two brown. I can't wait to save up and get a few more!

Menu Plan Monday — October 12

Want to hear the strangest start to a Menu Plan Monday you've probably ever heard?

I love the dentist!

Strange, I know. But see, a couple of weeks ago we all went to our new dentist for the first time (new because we had to find a dentist since we moved to an entirely new state) and this dentist has a monthly drawing for patient appreciation. One drawing is for the kids and one drawing is for the adults. Last week I got a call and not only did Buddy win the kids' drawing, I won the adult drawing. Weird, I know, and if I did the lottery I'd be all over it, but I don't. So anyway, I got $100 in gift cards to restaurants. $50 was for Cracker Barrel, which we haven't been to since we left Virginia, so we drove the 30 minutes on Friday night to eat there. This of course meant that Friday night's Taco Salad bumped to Saturday and I didn't get to try the Steak Burritos I had originally planned. But Cracker Barrel totally made it worth it.

So see, I love the dentist. Wait until you read Tuesday and you'll see why I love him more.

Monday — Clean out the fridge and pantry, maybe some blt or grilled cheese and soup. It's cold here! It was 31 degrees when I got up on Sunday morning.

Tuesday — It's Hubby's birthday, and that means we eat out and it doesn't count against Sunday! My other $50 in gift cards were for Logan's Steak House, and guess where Hubby usually likes to go eat for his birthday. Yee haw!

Wednesday — Steak Burritos. I'm putting them back on the menu for this week.

Thursday — Meat Loaf. This link is almost exactly the recipe from my cookbook, which of course I don't quite follow. When I make it later this week I'll post it exactly how I do it.

Friday — Mini-Meatloaves with Gravy. This is a made up recipe I'm going to try in the crock pot. It's made up only in the sense that my mom doesn't do it quite this way...hers is done in the oven with uncooked mini-meatloaves, and I'm making my mini-meatloaves the night before with my regular meat loaf and then doing it in the crock pot the next day.

Saturday — Impossibly Easy Chicken Pot Pie.

Sunday — Eat out since we ate in all week! Remember, birthdays don't count!

Visit The Organizing Junkie for more great menu plans and recipes.