Call me Betty Crocker - Adventures in baking

So Erika and I made some delicious cupcakes.


Devils food cake, chocolate ganache filling, homemade buttercream frosting, with swirls of ganache on top. mmMmmmmmmMMMmm...

Easy peasy ganache recipe:

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream. Bring to a simmer in saucepan. Turn burner off and add mini chocolate chips (we used milk chocolate, you can use semi-sweet or whatever you want. I just really enjoy the milk chocolate taste). Wisk in a little at a time and keep adding until you get the consistancy you want. It should be nice and syrupy, not watery at all. Voila! You can use it as a filling in cupcakes or as a fancy topping or anything you want! I tried to do chocolate covered strawberries, and it worked, but the only downside is that ganache doesn't cool hard. So the strawberries were just gooey, not nice and hard like they are supposed to be. So take that into consideration.

Erdman Munchkins

Ryan loves his little sister. He asks to hold her (albeit it only lasts for about 5 minutes until he looks at me and says 'I'm done', haha). He strokes her head gently and tells her he loves her. He is almost always the first one up to shove her binkie back in her mouth. Ryan walks into a room, assess who is there and if Lilly happens to be somewhere else (i.e. sleeping upstairs or something) he immediatly asks "where is Lilly??". He is one of the sweetest boys, and I'm so happy Lilly has such a good big brother to look up to.

Soccer Studddddd

Ryan started soccer a couple of weeks ago. He is SO excited! He is on a team with about 7 other little boys ranging from 4-6yrs old. Their team is called the 'Screamin' Eagles'! Ryan has been asking for a soccer team since Bobby got him a soccer ball in February. Fall league signups came and we made sure to get him in. He looks adorable in his little soccer gear his mom got for him.




He was the only one standing like a black belt when getting instructions... Isn't that awesome?

Bobby is helping coach his team. Bobby has a lot on his plate between working part time, owning his own business, trying to make sure that business does well and can pay our bills while I'm not working, training for a fight he is doing coming up, working to get his car finished, and now helping coach Ryan's soccer team. He is super dad!

the running backwards drills were a bit of a challenge for him.

'I'm soooooo hot!'

The team is getting their gear this Friday, and their first game will be this Saturday! Can't wait!

Paper Anniversary

August 24th marked mine and Bobby's 1 year anniversary of being married.

I know last year when we announced that Lilly was comming, and that we were already married threw some people for a loop. Lets re-cap.

August 24th last year, was one year that we had been engaged. See the post here. It was a really special day to me, not only because we had been engaged one year, but that was the day we went down to the court house and got married. No, there was no white gown, no brides maids or groomsmen. There was no photographer or place cards... it was just him, and me. Now, don't get me wrong. I WILL have my princess wedding. (a much more scaled down version of what I was planning, however). I will walk down that aisle with beautiful flowers in my hands and my daddy on my arm. When? Not sure, but those are just details that can be hammered out later. Right now, we're enjoying our little family, our beautiful children, and all of God's blessings he has bestowed uppon us.

So, this marked our one year anniversary, our 'paper' anniversary if you will. I'm one of those people that likes to go by the book on things. So, we kept it to "paper". I didn't tell Bobby my plans of keeping it to paper, because I didn't want to like 'take over' anything, or force him to do anything a certain way. But you know what? That man... he KNOWS me. Our anniversary was all paper from him. He KNOWS I'm a dork beyond all dorks and would want to stick to what the 'traditional' yearly gifts were. I was shocked. I mean, the man doesn't pay attention to 75% of the stuff I say (I ramble... I wouldn't listen to me either ha!). But I guess he is my husband, and he knows the things I like/enjoy. I'm glad he knew I would enjoy keeping our first anniversary traditional. =]

He came home with beautiful roses and a very sweet card.

Then later, once UPS got to our house, these were delivered. Paper roses to last for the rest of our lives and some happy 1st anniversary 'paper'. hahaha! He asked me if I was going to use it. o.0 oh husband...

The roses are BEAUTIFUL though! And completely paper. I need to go to home goods and get a pretty vase to put them in. I can't wait to look at these roses again in 50 years... to imagine what our life will be, the things we will acomplish, our children be grown and having grand babies for us. Our lives still have so much more... we have so many awesome things to do and achieve still. I can't wait to do all these things with the man I love by my side the whole time.

Oh, and we got to see Mystere! Yay for paper tickets! I totally broke the rules and took pictures... and had my phone taken away. But I didn't delete all the pictures! muahahaha! (they make you delete them to get your stuff back... but I'm a biotch and only deleted some). I'm a rule breaker... whatevs. So enjoy my illegal pictures from Mystere. We got to sit front row, it was AWESOME! Hubs did a great job.

Ok these dudes with the maskes freaked me out. The masks were on the back of their heads.. totally creepy.

This was the guy in the begining of the show telling everyone 'no pictures'. Yea, I listen well...

Prior to Mystere we went to dinner. I wanted mexican food, so we got mexican. Hubs thought it was strange I didn't ask for some place that would have cost over $100, but we had the baby. Granted, I could have left her with Erika, but I just couldn't for that long. So she came with :-)

us @ dinner. She hates her car seat if we aren't actually in the car...

And this was my paper gift to hubs. I know totally not as elaborate as his gifts, but it was fitting

We had a wonderful anniversary.

Sea World

Bobby and I took the kids to Sea World. ::squeel::

I LOVE Sea World. I went for the first time about 5 years ago and have been itching to go back ever since.

We left Friday after classes, and drove most of the night there. We stayed with Bobby's Aunt Ellen and Uncle Dan, who were amazing. I met them last year when we took Ryan to Lego Land. They are such nice people.

Dan taught Ryan how to play checkers:




They blew bubbles in the back yard with him






Ellen came with us to the beach

Lilly's first (of many) trip to the beach!

My favorite picture of booger at the beach

Quick funny beach story: Last year we dug a hole. Bobby had to ask Ryan to get in the hole a million times before he did. He FINALLY got in the hole, and the second he sat down, the tide came in and it coverd his whole face. Well, Bobby was quick to grab him out but it startled him and he wouldn't go near that darn hole again. (If you click the link in the begining of the post, you will see the hole). Well, we get to the beach and Ryan says to Bobby 'Daddy, I want to dig a hole again!'. hahahaha! I couldn't believe he remembered the hole! And secondly, I couldn't believe he actually wanted to do it again! Kid cracks me up. Seriously. he is the funniest, sweetest, most loving little boy ever.

It was a little cold. Bobby sat content in his chair. Lol! Ryan didn't care of course. I went in with him a little bit, but I didn't dare get in when Ryan said to me "Lets swim, Hunnie!" It was overcast, but it was still a fun time. I wish we could have gone to the beach a little more this summer, but with Lilly it was too hard. The overcast was really a blessing in disguize, I was really worried about her in the sun with her being so little. Next summer will be a blast with her just begining to walk and Ryan another year older. Can't wait.

Bobby caught a lizard and shared some sweet daddy moments with Ryan:

At first Ryan was a little shy, and Bobby had to coax him to even touch it. Once he held him though he was ON IT. He didn't want to put him down. He was really REALLY sad and upset when we told him he had to put it back. He just wanted to take him home. It was cute. But we explained to him that he needed to be in his home, and then he seemed okay with it.

Sea World itself was awesome. Ryan loved the sharks. He kept asking "Can we see the sharks now???". We kept having to put it off because all the shows are in the begining of the day, and we couldn't miss Shamuu! lol. Ryan liked when they jumped in the air. They had a Cirque De Soleil show where they do acrobatic stuff into the water, and jump and fly in the air. Ryan LOVED that one. He was waving to the performers and everything. Hilarious. He got a really cool crazy hat at the whale show. It lights up in the dark.

Here is the hat. He insisted on pushing Lilly a lot. He wouldn't let anyone else touch the stroller and 'help'. I'd try to sneek in there and steer him to the left or right and he would say 'Hunnie you're touching it!'. Haha!! Yes Ryan, you cought me.

me trying to calm down the baby in the shark aquarium. Which, we did get to by the way.

They had a HUGE play area for the kids. Ryan spent a good portion of the end of the day there.

This thing was AWESOME. I totally wanted to go in and jump. It's a huge area that was just a big inflatable jump thing. It was like 10 bounce houses put together. I wanted to play :-(

Ryan was pretty fascinated by the flamingos.

du nu, du nu, dunu (jaws music) haha

Ryan and his daddy at the shark aquarium

Ellen and Lilly hanging out.

We had a great vacation, and the kids were both angels the whole time. Ryan was a great listener, and helped out a TON with his baby sister. Was very concerned about her the whole time. Lilly slept great (I was worried about her sleeping in a new place, in bed with me.) slept all night and was a trooper. She slept for most of Sea World, which is why there aren't any pictures of her. I took a bunch, but she's sleeping in the car seat. lol. She went in the baby bjorn great and only fussed in the begining while getting used to it. Bobby and I enjoyed ourselves, even though he wasn't a huge fan of the cold beach. He was a trooper though and hung out while Ryan and I had our fun. Successful trip :-)