Caking - Farewell Vera!

Today we had a Farewell party for an elderly widow in our church. She has lived here for many years and is moving this next week to Idaho to be closer to her family.
I made a cake for her party!

Made a butter pound/sponge cake with strawberry filling and cream cheese frosting.
Turned out really good since I made it a day ahead of time and it had time to sit and the strawberries to ooze into the cake and give it good flavor, texture, and moisture.

I then covered and decorated it with marshmallow fondant. If you want to use fondant I highly suggest making your own with marshmallows and sugar as the store bought stuff is very hard, tough, and does not taste good at all. The recipe in the link came from Cake Central . com. There are lots of different recipes on there for fondant. It's very easy to make and to work with.

I gave up on making the "red" a true red color as it was alot of work. So I settled for this pinkish coral color.

Vera has played piano for our church on occasion. She also faithfully plays for the churh's service at the local hospital for the elderly and shut-in people.
We are sad to see her go, but happy she has found a new home near her family.

Gender-neutral Baby quilt

Last weekend we had a baby shower for our church's Pastor's wife who is due to have her 5th child in April. Her last child was born 6 years ago, and they have since gotten rid of almost all their baby stuff. So we decided to help them out and give a baby shower.

I was happy I found a set of coordinating prints that were very gender neutral since they are choosing to not find out what the baby is until it is born.

I liked this particular block, and it had the words centered on accident - was just how the fabric was cut and pieced together. :)

I used the matching fabric collection's fleece for the backing.

She really liked it! And I enjoyed making it!

2-22-12 Grocery shopping highlights

Wednesday I went shopping. Here are the highlights of my couponing and deals:

At CVS I got all of this for $13.58
I did 2 transactions.

First one:
Bought 1 Coldcalm for $6.99 Which was on sale and I received a $6.99 ECB (extra care bucks) for purchasing 1. Making it essentially FREE.
I also bought 2 Right Gaurd deodorants for $3 each. I received a $2 ECB for buying 2 and also used a $3/2 coupon.
My total came to $10.88 and $8.99 ECB printed on my reciept.

For my second transaction I bought 9 Kleenex tissue boxes on sale for $0.88 each. I used 2 - $0.50/3 and 1 - $0.75/3
The Nestle Pure Life bottled water was on sale for $2.66
I used the $8.99 ECB from first transaction and a CVS cash card that had $0.36 left on it.
My total was $2.70

Here are the Freebies I got at CVS and a few other stores I shopped at:

Brawny Paper towels were %50 off at Smith's so they were $0.89 and I used 2 - $1/1 coupons. Making them FREE (possibly a $0.11 money maker if Smith's allows overage, which I am not certain on).
The Coldcalm and Right Gaurd deoderant was Free at CVS
I got the Kleenex Cold Touch, Milk, and Ocean Spray Juice Free at Kmart.
Milk was free if you bought 4 participating breakfast items, I got the Nature Valley granola bars.
Kleenex was free when you bought 2 participating paper products, I got the Scott 10 ct Paper Towels.
And Juice was free when you bought $25 in grocery items.

Overall it was a successful shopping trip! :)

Living a Transformed Life...

Today I finished reading At the Throne of Grace - a book of prayers by John MacArthur.
One of the last prayers in the book I thought was exceptionally good. So I'm going to share it here.

(James 2:1-13)

"Almighty God, we are privileged to call You our Father. You loved us and saved us and adopted us into Your own family.
You have therefore call us as believers to love one another with pure hearts fervently.
That includes not showing partiality, which is one important way of fulfilling the royal law of loving our neighbors as ourselves.
Help us about in love, and keep us from making ungodly distinctions between one another.
May our actions toward one another reflect the perfect love with which You first loved us.

We take to heart how Christ taught us to pray, yearning for Your name to be hallowed, Your kingdom to come, and Your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Those are the true desires of our hearts; forgive us for being so preoccupied with lesser things.

And yet You also invite us to ask You for our temporal needs - our daily bread and other needs, all of which You richly supply.
Always You answer with surprisingly more abundance than we have faith to ask or think.
We drink our fill of that abundance; and You keep it flowing like a river.

For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.

May we never forget how dependent we are on Your generous bounty; give us truly grateful hearts, and fill our mouths with praise.

How thankful we are for the written Word - that razor-sharp two-edged sword, which is able to discern our thoughts and intentions even more accurately than we can know our own hearts.
The Word cleanses and sanctifies us.
It gives understanding to our minds, wisdom to our thoughts, and light to our path.
It is perfect, utterly transfiguring our inmost beings.
May our lives - like the apostles' - be so evidently transformed by Your truth that people will take note that we have been with Jesus.


You, our great Redeemer, have led us out of the desert of sin into a flourishing place of righteousness.
Lead us into a still-wider garden of holiness so that we can fully enjoy all the hopes, comforts, and responsibilities of our salvation.
In that garden Your inspired Word is the seed that will bring forth good fruit according to its kind.
May Your Spirit enlighten our minds so we understand and obey Your Word.
May His light shine through us to needy people throughout the world so that they might recognize and submit to Your divine power.
No matter how great or how humble our labors, help us do them well as a blessing to You and others.
These things we ask, Father, in the name of Christ Your Son.

To You be all glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen."

(bold emphasis mine)