More birthday-May 28, 2018

And here are the balloons to go with the Cinderella cake.

We pulled off a great surprise this year with both parents and girls.

What a fun thing to do!

 

As you well know getting a happy picture of Zoey is

next to impossible. So, trust me, she was happy. I met

her at the door and directed her to their bedroom and had

her change into this Cinderella dress. She was a bit overwhelmed.

What a fun time we had celebrating with our little Cinderella.

 

The cake was quite an engineering feat and we did not realize it until we cut it. It had dowels and posts and cake boards and the doll went through the top layer and a cake board into the bottom layer. Very impressive. The skirt was a light and very tasty pound cake. The base was a white layer cake with raspberry filling. The whole thing was covered in fabulous buttercream. It is an excellent cake, very moist and flavorful. We look forward to the next chance we get to have another cake from Batter Up.

Birthday cake-May 25, 2018

Sunday is Zoey's 4th birthday. She has asked us repeatedly since the first of this year for a Cinderella cake. After about the fifth request I knew what I wanted her to have. There is a baker here who does fabulous cakes of every kind imaginable. So we ordered the cake in March because this is graduation weekend. We picked it up this morning.

This is THE Cinderella cake exactly as I wanted it.

Zoey was completely shocked. It is a stunning piece of work.

The skirt has edible glitter just like the real doll has.

We have had cupcakes from Batter Up so we know the cake will be fabulous.

It is a white cake with raspberries in between layers. The doll is a real doll wrapped

in food wrap so she can be removed and played with after the cake is eaten.

This cake was terribly expensive but worth every penny to give one little girl

a cake beyond her imagination.

 

I'm probably going to cry when we cut it!

Flower-May 20, 2018

On our way back from WinStar we stopped in Edmond, Oklahoma to fill up the truck. We make the same stop every trip. But this time we had some added beauty. The entire parking lot was filled with magnolia bushes in full bloom. When I was growing up we had magnolia trees. But here they were bushes about 5-6 feet tall. Still the blooms were really pretty.

It is so perfect it almost does not seem real. But it is.

They fragrance has been bred out of them. Otherwise this parking

lot would have been full of a very sweet scent.

 

Magnolias do not grow here probably because our winters are too cold for the bushes to survive. So while this was pretty to see it was also a memory from my past.

 

Birthday and flag-May 16, 2018

Today would have been my Daddy's 98th birthday. He was a wonderful man and a fabulous father. Many things remind me of him but today I was touched most of all. Daddy, a WWII veteran, absolutely loved this country and the American flag. The last picture I was able to take of him was in front of a pretty American flag hanging at their house. Today we stopped in Hays, Kansas (returning from another trip to WinStar) and when I looked out the window I just stood there.

This is what I saw:

I can almost feel Daddy's sense of pride for this beautiful flag.

What a wonderful thing to see on his birthday.

I miss him very much.

 

 

 



Girls-May 13, 2018

We have had several days of babysitting lately and I finally lucked into some almost decent pictures. I prefer when they are not posed but sometimes I take what I can get. Please allow me to share a few.

Little Miss Daisy fits perfectly in the princess tower now.

And she loves it.

 

She loves the dollhouse, too.

 

This is the smile we see on Zoey most of the time.

This is what we get when we ask for a posed smile.

 

And when they don't mind we throw them in jail

in the princess tower. Can you see how they are suffering?

 

They are so much fun.

 

 

 

 

Soccer-May 7, 2018

We went to watch Hannah's soccer game on Saturday. The game was at noon. Why noon? No trees in sight. No breeze. Just a hot sun. The team members were being drowned with Gatorade but they still could not stay hydrated. It was just miserable. It got to us, too. We did feel that we needed to be there to support Hannah but we are not sure we can sit out in the hot sun like that again. They play until the end of May.

If you have never watched a soccer game of 5 and 6 year olds you need to do that. It is like both teams are glued to the ball. Both teams. So every player on the field follows the ball. And they move together like a mob. It is hilarious. But we did not go there to laugh. We did that later when we got home! The ball spent more time outside the white lines that it did inside. I know they have to learn but the constant whistles and free kicks have to be disheartening even to little kids.

 

At least Hannah had her eye on the ball even if she couldn't get to it.

 

The other team had a couple of ringers in there. Hannah is the only girl on her team. The other team had 3 girls and 2 of them were taller than I am. Seemed a bit much for 5 and 6 year olds. But there is not a soul who will listen to such complaints.

 

We're not sure that we can sit in that kind of heat in the future. It was miserable. Oh, yes, Hannah's team lost.