Things I love...

In honor of Valentine's Day tomorrow... here are some things I love... in no particular order.  :-) 

my fabulous husband

my amazing kid 

baking 

belting out songs like I'm trying out for American Idol 

my parents 

red wine 

White Christmas (the movie and when we have one) 

New York City 

My Fair Lady 

chocolate 

movie theater popcorn 

hearing my little girl sing 

laughing 

reading really good books 

sleeping 

my girlfriends 

North Carolina 

the ocean 

my cousin Erika 

being a mommy 

a clean bathroom 

organizing 

my kitties 

babies 

crock pot meals 

summer 

flip flops 

pretty snow that doesn't stick 

Christmas tree farms 

Friday nights 

relaxing on the couch and watching mindless tv 

funny movies 

all of my extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) 

Letters to Erin  

my grandparents

old pictures 

trees 

tomato soup with a ton of saltines 

sugary cereal 

warm cookies 

beautiful architecture 

museums 

creating art 

vacation 

coffee 

alone time 

music from RENT - the original cast recording 

finding new recipes 

cheese 

Gilmore Girls 

bubble baths 

Broadway 

happy hour 

cherry blossoms 

the smell of fall 

painting 

taking pictures 

thunder storms 

the song "Someone to Watch Over Me" 

New York style pizza 

sleep overs 

foot massages 

my childhood teddy bear 

Ugly Betty 

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade 

ferris wheels 

holding hands 

 

I'm sure there's more... something I'm leaving out... but this is just a reminder that Valentine's day isn't just about being "in" love... it's also about what you love.  So, what do you love?  

I'm baaaaaack...

Well, this has been a long hiatus I've taken from blogging, huh?  I have no good excuses.  Just life, I guess.  I'll try to catch you up, in case you don't know.  But who am I kidding, anyway? Everyone who reads this knows me, but I'll still write a synopsis of the past three months for my own enjoyment.  Come with me on this journey down memory lane. Will you?  

K... Since I've been gone, we have had a fabulous Thanksgiving and Christmas.  My little girl turned 3!  We had a crazy Chuck E Cheese birthday party and I even made a Buzz Lightyear cake!  My sweet Rachel came home for a visit, but she's now returned to the mission field and will be in Manila for the next year.  My precious Aunt Angala had her life ended too quickly by cancer and she went home to be with Jesus.  

I have made a lot of new food and tried some new cake techniques (like my miserable attempt at making marshmallow fondant).  But what has happened that's been hard to believe... what we've gotten the most of... what has surprised us the more than anything...  is the SNOW!  

It snowed twice in December.  The first was little, nothing to write home about, really.  Then before Christmas we had over a foot, around 18 inches or so!  That never happens!  Then just last week we had two more snows... one that got us a delay and one that closed schools.  But then... the mega storm came!  SNOWpocalyps! ... SNOWmaggedon!  It's been insane!  It started Friday and snowed all day Friday, through the night and all day Saturday.  We got around 30 inches at our house.  School closed Friday and again today...  Frankly, who knows when we'll get back to school because, believe it or not, it's supposed to SNOW AGAIN tomorrow night!  "significant accumulation" is what The Weather Channel and Washington Post are telling us.  I've grown accustomed to the fact that we may never go back to school this winter and that I will just have to kiss June goodbye and start planning on celebrating Independence Day with my students. 

So... here are some pictures (just for you Erika!) of  SNOWmageddon!  I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to blog here in February, seeing as it'll probably be March before I make it back to work.  :)   

Caroline had fun in the snow! 

She attempted a snow angel!  Standing up!  

We are very lucky to live in a condo association who shovels snow like crazy and makes us awesome paths all the way to our front door!  I may complain about the fee, but it's times like these that I appreciate not "owning" a sidewalk.

She played in the path.  hehe  She couldn't even climb in the snow.  It was just too deep!  It only took about 13 minutes and 32 seconds for her to decide that hot chocolate looked a lot better than a snow path. 

Callie cat marveled at the crazy amount of snow out of our back door! She was thanking ceiling cat  all day that she is an indoor kitty! :) (That was for you Andrew!)

wedding + sickness + halloween = tired.

Well, it has been quite a week!  Too much has happened for me to actually go into detail about, but a photo overview of events is absolutely necessary.  :-)  

I traveled to Atlanta Thursday before last to celebrate in the wedding festivities of my two dear friends Karla and James!  

It was a spectacular time!  With some of the most amazing food I've ever eaten...  like my Southern Burger from Flip Burger.  - Deep fried beef burger with pimento cheese, bread and butter pickles and green tomato ketchup!  And they had glass bottle, real sugar Cheerwine! My favorite soda ever created!  So delicious!  

I also can't forget my favorite meal EVER from Highland Bakery!

Shrimp and Grits with a jalapeno cheese bread!  Insane!  

  

Anywho enough about food, we'll talk more about that later... 

The wedding was amazing and so THEM!  

Karla looked stunning! 

 The details of this wedding were so unique!  

They made their center pieces that were branches spray painted orange with tiny owls and

 votive candles glued to them.  They were awesome!  

They also had Mad Libs speeches for everyone to fill out!  Creative and fun!

The Krispy Kreme grooms cake was too much for me to handle!  I think I died and went to heaven! 

They also had red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (YUM!) and they all had teeny cake toppers on them that looked shockingly similar to James and Karla! 

 

The food, following with the trend of the weekend, was incredible!  Breakfast for dinner (MY FAVORITE) from The Flying Biscuit.  YUM!

On top of all the details, there was just so much love and friendship in the place that my heart was just overflowing!  

My beautiful mom was my date, since Andrew and Caroline stayed back in VA.  

 Friends were abundant with all of my girls (minus our beautiful Rachel... :-( who will one day join us again in the US... but thank goodness her parents were there to represent!)   

I don't know what happened with the lighting in this picture.  Oh well... I still love it because I love all of these girls SO MUCH!  

And of course, because I'm a sap, I cried my eyes out hugging my newly married friend! Aww!

Overall, it was a spectacular weekend!  Exhausting, but wonderful!  

Congratulations to Karla and James!  Love you both!!!

I got home Sunday and napped for a good three hours that afternoon.  I was still tired on Monday, but trugged through the day.  I was feeling okay until Wednesday night when I started feeling super dizzy and went to bed early to sleep it off.  I woke up Thursday and couldn't shake the feeling like I was going to faint.  I went to the doctor and they tested for a lot, but couldn't give me an explanation other than my body was most likely just trying to fight off something I had been exposed to, which would be just about everything that's out there right now.  I attempted to go to school after the doctor, but was sent home.  I ended the day still feeling dizzy and with a massive headache to boot.  lovely.  Friday, I woke up still feeling lightheaded and nauseous.  Somehow I decided it would be a good idea to go to school because I didn't want to use any more leave so early on in the year, but that idea was put to rest when I had to run out of our morning meeting to vomit. gross and embarrassing.  Luckily I made it to the bathroom before it all came out.  Obviously, I went home again and stayed in bed all day long.  I was on the mend Friday night and was determined to have a good day for Halloween and Praise Jesus I did!

I woke up Saturday feeling much better.  Still not 100%, but at least a good 75%. :-) I was good enough to make rice krispy treats, carve pumpkins and dress up as a witch!  I guess that's about 100% to most people, but to a McElveen to make it 100% I could have added clean the entire house and do four loads of laundry to the list, which did not happen. hehe 

 

My girl was PRECIOUS as Raggedy Ann this year!  Do you love her or what?!?  

 

Overall, it's been a busy time!  I'm so thankful for two work days without kids Monday and Tuesday.  Not much better than that... well, other than snow days.  When are they coming?  I'm ready! :-)  More to come... probably at Thanksgiving.  haha  I'm not a very good blogger.  

Baby cakes!

Hello all!  Are you still there?  *crickets*  hmmm  *taps mike* HELLO!  Are you still there?  

Okay... here it is... I know I've really been awful at blogging lately, but I have to show this off!  

I made these adorable "baby cakes" Sunday night.  I got it into my mind that I wanted to make something mini and these tiny cakes were what came to my mind.  

I love the way they turned out.  Only six of the eight I made are pictured.  I made two eight inch round cakes and used a wine glass to cut smaller circles out of each cake.  I got four circles out of each cake and I used the scraps for cake balls!  YUM!  The rounds ended up about 3 inches in diameter.  I then sliced the rounds in half to make the mini cakes two layers.  I iced half in chocolate butter cream frosting and the others in white butter cream!  And as you can see, I decorated them all differently.  I love cake!  And tiny things.  And just putting them together makes me happy.  Though, I will admit that as cute as these cakes turned out, they took FOREVER to make!  I will definitely not do this again unless it is for a special occasion or I am getting paid.  :-)  Can you blame me?  

Also, because I've been a blogging slacker, I thought I'd show off the pumpkin spice cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting and the chocolate covered cheesecake balls I made for my dear Karla's bridal shower the other weekend.  They turned out AH-mazing, if I do say so myself.  Don't you like how I'm always patting myself on the back?  hehe  

Tomorrow I'm leaving on a jet plane for the ATL to spend four glorious days with my best girlfriends in the whole wide world (sans Rachel who is somewhere in Asia right about now... sad!) to celebrate the union of Karla and James!!!  woo hoo!  Can't wait to see all of these beautiful faces again!  LOVE THESE GIRLS!   

Peace out y'all and have a great rest of the week!  

Kitty!

We got a new kitten!  She is quite possibly the sweetest thing ever!  

Just look at that face!  How could you not love her?

Andrew loves her.  

I love her.  

Caroline loves her.  

Scout tolerates her.  :-)  

(Please excuse the quality of this photo.  It was taken with Andrew's blackberry.) 

We are all very happy with our new addition!

This weekend we're off to Roanoke/Lynchburg to see my parents, have a wedding shower for my girl Karla, and to attend my 10 year high school reunion!  I'm an old woman! :-)  We leave tomorrow evening!  It should be fun times!  I hope our kitties survive three days alone! :-)  

Cake. It's the best I can do.

Hello faithful blog readers.  (All 3 of you!)  I'm sorry it's been so long!  

I have been trying to post for like a million years.  Wanting to catch everyone up with the million things that seem to have happened since I last posted.  Well, that blog may come along eventually... maybe even this week... but for now... this will have to do.  

Cake has been an important part of my life as of late.  

As some of you may remember from my last couple of posts, I started taking a cake decorating class two weeks ago!  It has been an amazing experience!  And I don't say that lightly.  I have loved every single minute of it!  From baking the cake, to making the icing, to icing the cake, to learning professional decorating techniques, to putting the techniques into action, to taking it to work and letting my coworkers rave about my creation and then devour it in five minutes!  Ah-mazing!  I think I may have a knack for this.  I've never felt this confident about anything.  I seriously think this is a career move that may happen somewhere down the road (hopefully sooner rather than later)!  I have never loved doing and creating anything as much as this!  

And now... for my very first professionally decorated cake.  The thing I love the most about this cake is that I free-handed my design.  Everyone else in the class used stencils, but she showed us how to draw our own and I decided to try that out.  So, instead of going the easy "traditional" way I drew my own design and then transfered it to my cake.  I must say that I think it turned out great!  It exceeded my expectations!

Cake decorating Part 2 is definitely going to happen!  I'll keep you all updated and post pictures of my next cakes!  

success!

Well, the cupcakes were a success!  

Though only partially.  I LOVED the banana cupcakes and I LOVED the peanut butter frosting! What I didn't LOVE was the two of them together.  Now, don't get me wrong, it wasn't a situation where I tasted it and hated it so much that I couldn't eat it.  It was good.  Just not... it. The banana cupcakes were perfectly moist, fluffy and delicious!  The peanut butter frosting was thick, rich and also quite delicious!  My problem was that the peanut butter frosting was overpowering the greatness of the banana cupcake.  It was just too much together.  Separately they were perfect, but together, not so much.  However, I do think the peanut butter frosting would be perfect with a chocolate cake! YUM!  And I'll just have to keep trying with the banana cupcake.  Bakerella used a cream cheese frosting, so maybe I'll try that next time.  These recipes were amazing though and they will stay in my recipe book for many years to come! 

 

My always faithful taste-tester was partial to the peanut butter frosting!  

That was her favorite.  She ate off the whole top of the cupcake and wanted to scrap the rest.  Kids.  They know what they like, right?  

Well, tomorrow is my final full day at home with my girl for the summer.  Sad.  Andrew and I will be off to our end-of-the-summer get away and my mom will stay with Caroline until Sunday.  Then Monday... school begins.  sigh.  Oh how I will miss seeing her adorable face all day long!  How can you not love her?!?!  I think she's incredible!  Though I guess I am a bit partial!  

Look at that style!  She's a movie star in the making!