Emmy's

Hello,
I have pretty much stopped watching award shows, but the Emmy's were on last night while I was switching channels...and I stopped to view them for a while. I watched until my favorite actor won for Best Supporting Actor in a comedy! I was so excited for him. He plays Sheldon on the funny Big Bang Theory. He was up for this last year, too, but that stupid Baldwin guy got the award. He isn't funny! Then, I watched a few of Jimmy Fallon's silly things and went to bed. I am very happy that my other favorite show, "Modern Family", won for best comedy, instead of that stupid "30 Rock" show. Ha! I am calling everything stupid, oh well... I stopped having any respect for the creator of that show when she started picking on the children of Sarah Palin. I thought her imitation of Palin was fine, but when she started talking about the kids, that was ridiculous. I didn't get to see Modern Family win, though, because I was in dreamland!
I have about had enough of Betty White, too. She is being portrayed as a sweet, old thing, yet she has always been famous for being a sexual innuendo kind of a comedienne/actress. I guess people nowadays don't know that, or they forgot that. She is just doing the same stuff she has been doing for years...but she is 88 now, and I suppose that makes it funnier or something.
I finally watched the movie called "50 first dates" the other night. I watched up until the end, that is. I FELL ASLEEP RIGHT BEFORE THE END!!!! I cannot believe that! I do not even know how it ended. The show was really cute, so I hope to see the end of it some day.
The first day of school was today. It was fine, but I had an excruciating toothache all day. Actually, that pain started in the middle of Friday night and woke me up! I had the beginning of a root canal back in July, and it never got finished. The dentist hit a nerve when he gave me the shot, and my mouth has been numb since. I suppose it WOKE UP Friday night and OUCH!! I called today for an appointment and got one for 3:30, but since it was the first day of school I couldn't leave early to go. So, I couldn't get another appointment until September 14th!! The dentist said I probably have an infection in that tooth, and he called in a high powered Amoxicillin for me (875mg). That medication will hopefully calm down the pain and swelling, too. I wish I had just made him pull that tooth out in July, but he talked me into a root canal and possible bridge. Sheesh! Now maybe he will understand why I want the silly things pulled. I have terrible teeth!!!!!!
So, we are beginning another new school year. It seems like we never left the school! I hope that I have a good experience this year. I know it will be a busy one.
Take care and stay cool. We still have a lot of hot days ahead of us before Fall!!

Rachel

Rachel Morel Hedgecoth Watford

Today is my daughter's 28th birthday! I was so excited on the day she was born, because I finally had my little girl. She was so extra special, and she still is. I made a cake for her last night, staying up until 3:30 a.m. We had a big storm last night, and my dad came over for a few hours while his electricity was out. So, I got a late start making the cake. She wanted one kind of like my fourth of July cake, so I tried, only it is purple and white, rather than blue, red, and white HA!! She asked for a yellow cake with fondant. I made homemade fondant Thursday night, and it was ready to use Friday night. I made some royal icing to make flowers tonight to put on the cake, but they have to dry before being added to the cake. I have pictures of what it looks like so far, though. The fondant tried to kind of, well... melt! Plus, each cake layer broke when coming out of the individual pans!! SO, this cake was a bear to ice!! I put edible glitter all over it, too, so that should add some sparkle!I made a drape and ran it around and up the cake. I am going to add some pansies on the cake tomorrow, after they dry into candy! I will post a final picture of the cake later. I have had trouble getting just the right angle shot to make the cake look decent in a picture, but here is a good try. Excuse the mess in my kitchen! I really need to learn how to use photoshop!!!! haha




Rachel does so many things for me that I cannot even list them all here. She has been my rock for a long, long time, and I love her dearly. Rachel is a special person in this world, and I am so happy and privileged to have her as MY DAUGHTER!!

I love you, Rachel, Rachie, Rachiepoo, poopidoo, sweetiepie!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you God for giving me a most wondrous gift, my baby Rachel, August 21, 1982!!!!!!

cake

I tried adding these cakes in my previous post, but I kept getting an error message about a tag being broken. So, I will put them here.

The Castle

Hello,
I have been talking about making a castle cake all summer, and I finally did it...WITH the help of my 10 year old niece I must add. I let her do most of the work! I taught her how to make the icing, color the icing, ice the cake, roll out fondant, cut flowers out of fondant, and use the icing bag to make trim. She did pretty well. We made purple icing, and boy was it purple!! I forgot that red and purple tend to darken as they air, and we added a lot of color! We had some trouble with the turrets that came with the castle kit. They did not want to stay up. The cake was so fluffy that it wouldn't hold the plastic pieces, and they kept falling out and destroying the side of the cake!! Then of course, driving to Julia's house was another episode of turrets falling out of the cake. I finally got the cake to the house, though, even over all of the holes in the dirt road leading to the house!

This picture shows the cake after several episodes of turrets falling off. You can see that some of them are crooked, but Snow White managed to stay in place!



Lauren had a great time helping me with the cake, and it was okay that the decorations on the doors and windows were a bit crooked. HA! She did a good job for her first time trying to use the icing bag. She put lots of pink flowers on the windows and door. The picture on the box has lots of small flowers. I thought I had the correct flower cutter, but I believe I needed a smaller one. Oh well, it turned out fine. Lauren thought of making Julia's initials and putting them by the door, so she cut some out of fondant. I thought that was a creative thought! You can see that part in the first cake picture at the beginning of the blog.

These picures show her having fun putting pink and purple sugar on the turrets.





Julia was telling everyone that she was "fowah". Her little accent is so funny. Fo-wah. Four, we would say. No, FO-Wah, she would say. Ha! Ha! Here she is inspecting the number four candle from her cake, surrounded of course by her little brother. They were both awed by all the parts on the cake, and they just kept looking at it, and looking at it, checking out every part of it.



When she got her bike, her little 2 year old brother wanted to climb on it. He is going to want to ride that bike every time she tries, I bet. He actually climbed up on it like climbing a mountain. He found little places to put each foot and got all the way up onto the seat!! Little boys are like that!!
School starts for teachers next week, so I need to get used to the idea of going back to work. I have one more cake to make this week for my daughter's birthday, and then no more for a while!
Summer is almost over!
Have a great day!!

The Cheesecake Factory

Hello from Tampa!

Rachel and I found a great mall yesterday. We went to find the Crate and Barrel, just to look around, and then we found this huge mall on the other side of the building. We also saw the Cheescake Factory sign attached to the mall. We found lots of great stores. Rachel found a nice sweater/shirt at J. Crew. I found a Lucky Brand store, but I only walked around in it. I love purses made by Lucky Brand, and I have quite a few of them. Last Christmas, I found some purses by that brand at T.J. Maxx for a good price. This particular mall had very high end stores and regular stores, like Nieman Marcus, Louis Vuitton, etc., as well as Fossil, the Loft, and Banana Republic. Of course, I was ecstatic to find a Williams Sonoma there as well! I have wanted a tomato press for about five years, but I never would order one online. I found one at a Williams Sonoma store in North Carolina, when Rachel and I went to the Biltmore. The little village there had a quaint little section of stores, and Williams Sonoma was one of them, but I didn't buy the press. So, I had my mind set on getting one this time and avoiding shipping charges. I went into a kitchen store in Savannah last year and got talked into buying a more expensive item, a food mill, to try and do the job of the tomato press. Alas, I was not satisfied with that. That is okay, though, because I now have my tomato press;) I will let you know if I ever figure out how to make salsa with it!!
We had some great news yesterday! Vicky got a job in her field!! She will be working as a graphic designer for a young advertising firm. She is a graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design and has searched for a job in her field for several years. Of course we needed to celebrate, so we went out to the Cheescake Factory to celebrate her good news. I was at Publix yesterday and bought a sunflower bouquet for the house, not knowing that Vicky was receiving a call about her job at the same time. The flowers are making a nice addition to the house, and they are great for the celebration as well.
We are having a good time here with Adam and Vicky. Tampa is a nice place to visit. Adam has been wanting me to go to a store called Let Them Eat Cake that is right down the road. I went there yesterday, thinking it was a cake supply store. It is a bakery, but the guy talked to me for a while. They do have some supplies, although I got sidetracked and didn't look around. He said they offer individual lessons, if I was interested. I didn't dare ask how much they might cost, but I thought it might be something nice to do for myself. I told him that I took lessons at Michael's and that I make cakes for my family. Then, I told him that I am going to make a castle cake next week. He showed me a video of one of his bakers making a castle cake! I wonder if he was trying to persuade me to come in for a lesson on how to cut the cake into that shape and frost it with sugar :) I thought about going back over there today, but I haven't done it yet. Vicky is off today, so we are just hanging out with her.
We had a terrific supper last night and some great cheesecake! I had a chicken dinner with THREE chicken filets. It was delicious. I also had asparagus cooked to perfection and tasty mashed potatoes. Vicky had a humongous chicken burrito! Rachel had some New Orleans shrimp that was kind of like a gumbo. Adam had fish tacos. We all had something different and good. Then of course, we ordered cheesecake!



Rachel and Vicky ordered a turtle type piece, with caramel, pecans, and chocolate. De-lish!! Adam and I ordered their 30th anniversary cake with chocolate, chocolate, and chocolate. It was de-lish as well. We had so much food that we brought some of everything home. I already ate my leftovers this morning! The cheesecake is still in the fridge, though. I wonder how long it will last....




I am having a wonderful time with my kids! We miss having Don with us, but he is hiking the Appalachian Trail right now. I miss having Adam and Vicky in Savannah, but I suppose I will have to get used to it. That is what Adam told me anyway :D


Have a terrific day!!

football cake and thoughts

Hello,
I made yet another birthday cake last week. This one was a football cake for my brother. The request was to incorporate his rugby team and his school team, so I made red grass for his school and green icing for rugby! SCPS represents Savannah Christian Preparatory School, and SSRC represents the Savannah Shamrocks Rugby Club. The grass is red from the poor boys' red sweat for their team! haha


This summer has been full of birthdays, and they aren't over yet! Julia will be four next week, and I have a standing order for a castle cake for her. I hope I get home in time to make it properly. I am in Tampa right now visiting my son. Rachel's birthday is next week, and I have an order from her for a fondant cake (purple) with shapes and things. I will have to get that one just right!

Here are some other pictues of Dewey's birthday. Enjoy!

Dewey III on the seesaw, wearing a Savannah Christian Raiders jersey! He is always full of smiles!!



Julia helping her Daddy blow out his candles. She is also wearing a Savannah Christian Raiders jersey. Dewey is coaching the offensive line this year, so they special ordered these jerseys!! Daddy and Kate are close by enjoying the process. Kate looks like she is trying to help Julia blow out the candles!! haha



Have a great day!

A new fence, a birthday cake, and Rachel

Hi,
I am finally getting my backyard fence in proper condition. My golden retriever has been escaping out of the yard, so I am getting a new gate and an upgrade on part of the fence. Yea!

Today is Rebecca's 12th birthday. She called me the other day to ask me if I would make her birthday cake. I told her that I sure would! She is having a scavenger hunt at the mall today, so it was appropriate to do some sort of mall theme. Rachel spent the entire day with me yesterday (and spent the night!), so she helped me with the cake. When I made Adam's graduation cake, she was over here and saw how I worked with fondant. I taught her how to color it and knead it, etc. She helped me cut out letters and put them on his cake, too. So, she was ready to tackle Rebecca's cake. We talked about what kinds of things to put on it, and she started cutting letters. I made some homemade fondant Saturday, and I had plenty left. So, we used that for Rebecca's cake. We cut out letters for Gap, Old Navy, and Claire's. I wanted to put all sorts of little shapes on the cake, so we/she cut out hearts, circles, stars, etc. With the circle cutters, Rachel made the Target red circles for the cake, too. Then, we colored some of the fondant green, for the bottom layer. Green is Rebecca's "new" favorite color, replacing pink :) The top layer is pink. I think the cake turned out really cute and preteen looking. I have been wanting to do a cake like this for a while, so we did it!! Rachel rolled out the fondant, which is the hardest part of the whole process! She told me that she now knows why the big bakeries use those machines to roll out their fondant! haha! We needed two big pieces of fondant to be rolled out, so that we could cover both layers. I made some buttercream icing to go underneath the fondant, and I showed Rachel how to do a crumb coat on the cake. After we got the fondant on, I taught her how to make a star flower border. She did a great job.

Rachel has gone to the mall to help with the scavenger hunt. I am here with the dogs waiting for my gate to be made. The dogs have to come inside while the guys are working outside. I don't want them escaping out of the yard while the workers are here. Here is a picture of them doing their favorite thing...SLEEPING. Please ignore all the extra junk in the picture that is on my floor. I tried to crop most of it out of the picture! I still have all of my school stuff sitting in this living room that I brought home in June! It will just have to stay there until I go back to work in a couple of weeks.




Yesterday was the first day the guys came to fix the fence. Wouldn't you know that we had a rainstorm before they were able to finish! So, they had to come back today to make the gate. Yes, they have to make a gate from 'scratch' to fit in the space of my new fence.




Lattice was added to the top of my short fence, so that the dogs cannot get over into the neighbors' yard and jump their fence!




So, I have a new fence, a great looking birthday cake, and a wonderful daughter to spend time with and enjoy.
Have a great day!!

Surprise, Rachel!!

We had a great day!Don planned a surprise birthday party for Rachel, because he will not be here on her birthday. She thought it was a sending off party for Don, because he is leaving tomorrow to hike the Appalachian Trail. She was surprised when we got ready to pray for our meal. I made an announcement about everyone being there for Don, and then we told her that it was really her surprise party. She cried. The mountain cake was decorated for Don, and it was a decoy cake for her birthday. HA! Anyway, I made two roasts and baked chicken. We had LOTS of deviled eggs. Everyone decided to make them today, without realizing that each of us was making them. We all love those, and we usually run out of them FAST. So, we had a good day. Don bought Rachel a new mountain bike and a lot of picture frames to put in their house.


Our whole family was there, and Don's mom came. Mina, Saramina, Benjamin, and Ami came, too. So, we had a very good day.
Surprise, Rachel!!