One more picture of the cake............

so you can see how the flower bloomed and opened up to light the other candles hidden inside.

OK, I know I am a horrible blogger. I just so enjoy reading other people's blogs that I don't ever type my own.

But Amanda has been bugging me about posting pictures of Livy's birthday cake that I made almost a month ago. So I will post those now. I don't think there is any explanation needed. Livy wanted a safari themed cake, though I think I ended up more junglish with all of the greenery. I will post pictures of the candle too. I know you are all thinking (all 2 readers) that a candle is no big deal. Not this candle.

This candle was amazing. It was a plastic flower with candles in it. I had received it free at work with some sparklers a bride had ordered. It happened to have 8 candles so I thought it would be neat to use for Livy's cake. The fact that it came with sparklers should have clued me in that this was not an ordinary candle. It was simple to light - you lit this stick and touched it to a dot in the center of the candle and somehow it was supposed to light the other candles and the flower would open. The poor girl at the bounce place lit the candle and it fireworks went off shooting 3 feet into the air and well, you will just have to see the pictures to believe it.

New Foods

Okay - so I have started a new diet - I know I know - Another ONE???? But I figured with walking 3 miles in the mornings and eating this type of food I have to lose weight right?????? Anyway, my neighbor gave me this book after she got preggers because all diets are off when you are preggers, so I thought I would give it a try (sort of part of my Lent give ups as I always stick to that, and yes I gave up chocolate as well). (btw - Livy gave up cauliflower)

The first 4 days of this diet are brutal.......Very limited calories but the best part was the "Sassy Water" that you drink. It is yummy and makes drinking the water easier. It is just 2 liters of water, a lemon sliced thin, 12 mint leaves, teaspoon of grated ginger and a cucumber peeled and sliced thin. Let it all steep over night and start drinking first thing in the morning. It is very refreshing - I may tweak it a bit, the cucumber is a bit overpowering. So I survived the first 4 days and now am on to 4 - 400 calorie meals a day. This is where it gets fun!

Breakfast yesterday - Whole Wheat with flax english muffin with 2 egg whites, a piece of canadian bacon and babybella low fat cheese - it was quite yummy. My lunch yesterday was boring - turkey lunch meat with mixed greens and red bell peppers wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla and a side salad of grape tomoatoes and cashews. But dinner last night - OH WOWIE!!! The recipe in the book was a vegetarian recipe and called for chick peas, but I did not have that so subbed chicken - not sure if this is allowed - but it was super yummy and I know it was still relatively low in calories. Here it is.

2 Chicken breasts - cubed into bite size chunks
1 onion - diced
2 cloves of garlic - minced
1 orange bell pepper - diced
1 tbs curry powder
can of pineapple in own juice - chunks
can of diced tomatoes
a few handfuls of fresh spinach - roughly chopped
1/2 cup cashews

Saute the chicken, onion, garlic and curry powder until the chicken is almost done, add the bell pepper and saute another 5 minutes or so. Pour in the can of tomatoes and pineapple (juice and all) and let simmer for 10 minutes. Add the spinach and cook just until the spinach is wilted and cooked through. Stir in the cashews and serve over brown rice. It was so yummy and made a ton. I fed 3 adults and 4 kids (neighbors were there last night) plus had enough to bring for lunch today. I cannot wait to make it in a few weeks for Amanda and Daniel!

So on for breakfast today - Livy thought I was wierd, but it was a whole wheat with flax seed English Muffin, with just enough peanut butter to spread on top, 2 slices of turkey bacon and a couple of slices of apple - it was delish!

Amish Friendship Bread

Okay - so a lady at work gave me one of those Amish Friendship bread starters and I am now addicted to it. I have so many bags going and am making this stuff constantly. It is kind of cool because you add vanilla instant pudding to the bread - so I have started changing up the pudding. Yesterday I added chocolate pudding to one batch along with chocolate chips and a can of sweet dark cherries with the juice (but omitted the milk) and I did a butterscotch pudding with butterscotch chips and coconut and I did a pumpkin (yes there is pumpkin) pudding with pumpkin pie filling instead of the oil. Absolutely favorite is the chocolate - it was so yummy! The butterscotch was not bad, it just got gooey in the pan. I have found it works much better to not bake it as a bread loaf - but rather more like a cake if you are not following the original recipe. The butterscotch did not get done on the inside, but the outside was burning. Livy has requested the original cinnamon one and Mom has too, so I guess I will do that one tonight. It just seems boring now!

So - we had horrible weather here in Cedar Park yesterday. It was absolutely awful. I mean they had to delay school starting an entire 2 hours. Actually it was not that bad - just was a pain getting my car thawed out and school did delay the start time which Livy loved and might I add I did not mind at all. I did start my car at 9:00 am and by 9:30 am it still was not defrosted. The deal was it was misting all night and the mist slowly accumulated and froze on my car. Not a good thing.

We did make it in to school and work and it did warm up quite a bit. A lady at work did spend the day at the doctors office because she slipped coming into work - not a good thing. She seems to be rather sore today, but nothing broken at least.

So yesterday was report card day and I am quite proud of my angel for her grades.

Math - 95

Reading - 98

Writing - 100

Social Studies - 100

Science - 100

Absolutely wonderful. We went and met Mom and Dad at Gattiland last night to celebrate - since the Wiederhold 4 always got pizza on report card night from Mr. Gattis, this seemed appropriate.

Quick story - We took my 5 year old neighbor Ana with us to Gattiland. The girls were in the back seat and all of a sudden, Livy goes - "Ana, put your seatbelt on" I looked back and sure enough, no seatbelt on Ana. I told her Ana to get it on and that we were lucky because there had been a cop driving beside us the entire time and what if he had looked over, seen her without a seatbelt and arrested me for child endangerment. She looked at me and said, "I guess it is a good thing Jesus was taking care of us then." I was speechless.

Wow - I am blogging!

So Amanda has been bugging me to start a blog - so I figured, why not? It seems everyone else is blogging. I am not sure what I am going to blog about other than of course Livy =)~.

Nasty cold here and getting colder so trying to sneak out early!!!