CUPCAKES!!!

I tried these today and they were absolutely YUMMY!!!
Coconut Cupcakes

• 2 3/4 cups butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons each vanilla and almond extracts
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon each baking powder, baking soda, and salt
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1 1/2 cups flaked coconut, plain or toasted
• 8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
• 2 3/4 cups powdered sugar

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, cream together 2 cups butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in 1 1/2 teaspoons each vanilla and almond extracts.
2. In another large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add to butter and sugar mixture in 3 batches, alternating with coconut milk. Stir 1 cup flaked coconut into the batter.
3. Fill 30 paper-lined muffin cups (1/2-cup capacity) in two or more muffin pans about 2/3 full with batter. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 15 to 20 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes before removing muffins from pans. Cool completely.
4. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, beat cream cheese, 3/4 cup butter, and 1/2 teaspoon each vanilla and almond extract until smooth. Gradually beat in powdered sugar. Frost cupcakes and sprinkle with remaining coconut.

Can you say IMPRESSIVE??

Mom sent me a link to a video to watch these amazing girls! Take a breather and check it out! They have their blog and be sure to watch the video! AMAZING TALENT and an AMAZING WORKOUT!! Enjoy!

Kings Firecrackers

Nice Evening!

We were invited to enjoy a BBQ and the nice weather at Brian and Sue's house tonight. Unfortunately, the weather started to turn although there was never any rain! They barbequed burgers, chicken and sausage and we all provided the sides. It was just such a nice spur-of-the-moment get-together. After dinner we sang some hymns and that was very special and encouraging. It is wonderful to know that we don't have to be in Meeting to encourage each other. We sang so many hymns tonight that echoed the feelings of my heart as of late. We ended with this:
"Precious thought, my Father knoweth; in His love I rest, For whate'er my Father doeth must be always best. Well I know the Heart that planneth naught but good for me; Joy and sorrow interwoven - Love in all I see. Oh, to trust Him, then, more fully! Just to simply move in the conscious, calm enjoyment of the Father's love, Knowing that life's chequered pathway leadeth to His rest, Satisfied the way He taketh must be always best."

Spring Break

For the last week it's been spring break, although you would never know it by the weather! Finally this afternoon we had a few moments of sun -- after some very chunky rain this morning!! Let's see, we've done some shopping (unsuccessful I might add!), Tiana's spent about as much time at friends' houses as at home, we checked out SAM on the Free First Thursday and then went to Pike Place Market. That was fun because we also had McCaela, Terrah and Kaylin with us. It's always fun to go to the Market and have a bite of lunch. We took the bus and went into the tunnel. It was our first time through again since it's been reopened. We had fun despite the cold wet weather. We'll have to go check Pioneer Square out and the rest of downtown when the weather gets better! Today, Tiana and I went and spent the morning with a very special friend at her school in Seattle. She's a most adorable, precocious little Bug and it was so fun to see her in her classroom and hear all of the kids sing! What an incredibly talented bunch of teachers she's learning from and they pull all of the talent plus some out of the kids, too! Right now I'm more than exhausted and so when I get out of my lazy streak then I will post some pictures from our trip downtown!

From SAM day

And finally -- I'm on the computer where I can place the link and a photo or two! Check out the fun we had HERE!

Let the Music Begin!!

This lovely picture is brought to you courtesy of my co-worker MJ!! A few months ago our piano turned sour on one note. I had the tuner out and he fixed it, but didn't guarantee that he had permanently fixed that note. Well, about 2 months later it failed again! So, kinda bummed I was, but didn't really have the money to spend so "frivolously". One beautiful day at Starbucks MJ asked if I happened to know anyone who would want a piano! She had this one that had just been lanquishing in the basement and no one had ever really played it and now they would love to have it gone to make room for her daughter to move home and have more of an apartment-style living space. Imagine her surprise when I said that someone would be me!! So, we craigslisted the old piano, got rid of it and promptly headed to MJ's to get this beauty! It's in pretty decent tune (I can probably wait a while to have that done!) and it fits perfectly in the house! All that for a batch of Coffee Toffee Cookies! Thanks to her hubby for helping us move it, too! Hope we didn't do his back too much harm!! Now to think pretty seriously about starting piano lessons for Tiana, too! YAY!!

Fun Stuff!

Ok, I'm not even going to begin to try to understand this picture, but I will tell you that the sounds of giggles and chatting were quite fun to have around. These three girls have known each other for a good number of years now, since they were all in CampFire USA together!! As time has gone on and school has become more involved, they've kind of grown apart, but have recently "re-found" each other. They spent the afternoon together yesterday and did a bit of catching up, hair makeovers, blog creation and general good time-havin'! I found them all like this and just had to document the un-understandable habits of the human teenager!!



I look forward to more giggles in the future, and my hope is that they all understand that our home is a welcome haven of simplicity in an ever-changing, confusing world.

Parenting...

I don't feel like I have a lot of rights to talk about this, but my heart is both overflowing with thanksgiving for the blessings of a stable home and the heartache of watching teenagers deal with life. We've definitely had our struggles, but I'm very thankful to be able to say that I feel, with divine intervention and outside counseling, we are making baby steps towards a whole, happy family. In the last while we've been spending a lot of time with a lot of teenagers -- guess that comes of parenting one! What I see just breaks my heart, humbles me, finds me begging for wisdom at the Throne of the greatest Giver of all, makes me want to be all that I've vowed to be. Three weeks ago, or so, Tiana's friend's brother took his own life. The desperate sadness, anger and emptiness over this has been quite overwhelming. We've known the family for about 6 years and so as parents we've also felt her parents' pain, but have felt very keenly the pain that his teenage sister has been feeling. Yesterday we were at the Celebration of Life for Josh. We were surrounded by beautiful young people, a lot of whom I would say are in very tough situations. Many split homes, lots of confusion, on the cusp of life in a tough economy, just very tough. My heart ached for them, knowing that some of them didn't have much more than each other to lean on, and not that that has no value, but another "unstable" teenager isn't going to hold you up for long. After the service another friend from CampFire (this is how we came to know Josh's family, too) came up to me in tears and just leaned on me for a few minutes. Last night we texted for a long time. The poor thing has no one really to talk to and doesn't even know how to open up. This is the thing I fear the most for these kids -- that they bottle things up, never learn the tools to deal with their emotions, close themselves off from family and friends, and then end up another statistic. I've seen other of Tiana's friends turn aside because of their own feelings of, maybe, self-worthlessness, frustration, loneliness, and I fear that by turning away the very people that could be a great friend to them, they are setting themselves up for even more pain.

Anyway, I'm not sure, really, the point of this post, but I just want to say how thankful I am that I know a God who loves and cares and that He has put in me something that is drawing some of these children to me, to us, and my prayer is that all of us, as parents, grandparents, adult friends of teenage children be given the wisdom that we need, the extra love we need to help them through some extremely tough years. From the vantage point of -- it's still quite a few more years through our teens -- it seems a long road, but I have growing faith that together we can make it. To all of you who are reading this and are simply adult friends to these kids -- thank you!! It makes our jobs as parents easier when you are to them a strong, upright role model in their lives!!