Henry is five

I always enjoy it when it is one of the grandchildren's birthdays. On September 5 Henry turned five. Quite often I make the birthday cakes for the family. On labor day weekend the family was all together and Henry asked me if I would make him a snake cake for his birthday. I wasn't sure how I was going to do it but of course I said yes !! He also requested spider cupcakes. The theme of his party this year was the twelve deadliest animals, I don't know where on the list the snake and spider are ranked but I gave it my best shot.

We celebrated his birthday on the tenth of September so I had a few days to study and come up with the best approach to the cake. My first thought was I need to get some black shoelace licorice for the spider's legs. I found a website http://www.blaircandy.com/ that sold the licorice and many other nostalgic candies. I ordered the candy and I got it in time to make the cupcakes.

Back to the cake, I googled snake cake and got lots of pictures and directions to make a cake.
I started with two bundt cakes. Henry requested Strawberry cake, so when we cut the cake it would look like blood !!

I cut the Bundt cakes in half and formed this squiggly cake.

I bought several items to decorate the cake and cupcakes: Fruit roll up for the snake tongue, Chocolate marshmallow for the spider bodies, the licorice for the spider legs and red licorice just for fun. Mini chocolate chips for eyeballs, chocolate sprinkles and reese pieces (I didn't use them but they were great to snack on ! )


This is the color scheme that I went with Coral snake or Milk snake.


And here is the spider, isn't he cute ?




Here is a whole herd of spiders !!

The snake is looking to eat a spider ! Candles lit and we are ready to sing !

All the cousins waiting for Henry to open his presents.

It was a good day. Henry was very happy with his presents. Most of all we all had another great time of family fun.

Before we ate cake Sarah and Matt fed us Tacos. Yummy !

Have you ever held a tiger?

Well here I go again apologizing for how long it has been since writing a blog post. I spend a lot of time on facebook and I keep in touch with so many friends and family that I forget about my blog that I started. I will try to do better.

Gaffney is getting a new store, Tractor Supply, it will open next week. Apparently Tractor Supply asked a little zoo to come and set up in the parking lot for the grand opening, someone got the dates wrong and the zoo came to town this week instead of next week. It was quite exciting to have camel rides and tigers, kangeroos, lemurs, monkeys, a python, leopard and goats, ponies, llamas and a calf right here in Gaffney. The most exciting thing was you could get your picture taken with a baby white tiger ! Now have you ever held a tiger? or even touched one ? It was an opportunity of a life time. We took Henry, Zoe and Leilani to get their picture taken with the baby tiger. It was 8 weeks old, I'm not sure how much longer they will be able to let it sit on kids laps for pictures. I am glad that we had an opportunity to let the kids do a once in a lifetime thing today.

What is going on with me

I am so ashamed of how long it has been since I wrote a BLOG. The last blog was about our shoeboxes, that was in November, It is now February 20. Let's start with Pat and my anniversary, 11/20 was our 38 year anniversary, WOW !

Next, our family all got together at our house for our traditional Thanksgiving meal on Sunday before Thanksgiving. The food was great, everyone contributed.

On December 2 Pat and I flew to California for the weekend to visit his family. We had a great time, we spent some quality time with everyone. It was bittersweet because we know that is unlikely we will ever get to see his parents again.

December 10, we welcomed our newest granddaughter into the world, Kelly gave birth to Elise Kelly Hawkins, she is so precious !

December 18 I turned 56. Christmas afternoon everyone showed up at the house for snacks, games and presents. We did miss Zach and Jalen that day they were with their mom. Everyone brought a snack to eat. We exchanged gifts and started a new tradition (we hope) of the Christmas raffle. Pat had been buying things at Goodwill that he knew the girls would like. they all took turns picking something from the box. We also played Dirty Santa, this was when we really missed Zach and Jalen because they love the game so much.

On the 29th Kelly turned 30, Andrew turned 29 on the 30th .

Happy New year eve 2010, we spent a quiet night at home. Most recently Sarah turned 32 on the 10th of February, we all went out for dinner at House of Pizza.

The biggest thing going on with me is that I have been having trouble with my hip. After many Dr. visits and tests we have realized that I need to have a hip replacement, so on Tuesday the 23rd of February I will be having surgery. Since the trip to California I have become very handicapped and Pat has been doing a lot of things that I usually do. He has done all grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning. I am looking forward to being able to take on my responsibilities again. I hope to blog a little while I am in the hospital.

Thanks for reading and keep me in your prayers...

One last picture, we have had some snow this winter, Papa and Leilani built a snowman.

I would have had more pictures but for some reason I can't get all of the ones that I want to put on to copy and paste, so the blog only has a few.

Love you all

Operation Christmas Child 2009

The Boxes

It has been quite a while since I wrote a Blog. I just need to share about Operation Christmas Child. Today we finalized collecting shoeboxes at work. Once again I have been blown away by the generosity of my co-workers. Filling a shoebox for a child in a foreign country. These shoeboxes filled with small gifts may be the only thing that the children get this year. Each box is filled with small toys, candy, personal hygiene supplies, school supplies and small articles of clothing like underwear and t-shirts. The most important thing that each child will receive is a booklet that tells of the love of Jesus, the best gift we can ever receive.

For more information on how you can participate click here: Samaitan's Purse website

Our finishing Department

Our Production Department

Everybody

Pat and I

Do you Remember the Pineapple ??

Well the day has come to harvest our pineapple. Here is Pat holding his BIG crop.

We have been growing the pineapple plant for about three years.
This past January we learned what you have to do to get the plant to produce fruit. We followed all of the instructions and to our suprise a baby pineapple appeared. We have been watching it grow for several months. (refer back to earlier blogs about the pineapple) At some point the fruit stopped growing but the top kept getting bigger and bigger. As you can see in the picture the top is about four times larger than the bottom.

Pat cut it up today at work.

We made sure that we had a piece for all of our co-workers. Everyone has been watching it grow for several months.

The fruit was delicous. The plant has sent out another shoot on the side, we are hoping to be able to harvest another pineapple next year.

We have had fun with this project and the fruit was definetly worth the wait.

Happy Anniversary Kelly and Will

Today is Kelly and Will's Anniversary October 14, 2000

Nine years ago today our daughter Kelly got married. After dating for four years she and Will tied the knot. It was a beautiful fall day, actually quite warm. The ceremony was held at our home church West End Baptist. The reception was held at Cherokee National Golf Course. Their honeymoon was spent at Disneyworld.

Nine years later they have been blessed with three children (Clara, Lindy and Charlie) and number four on the way.

Kelly is a stay at home mom and Will teaches English in our local school district. Kelly and Will are both very active at their church. Kelly also leads a Brownie Girl Scout Troop. Pat and I are very proud of the Hawkins family. We pray that God continues to Bless them with many more happy years of marriage.

Remember 9 / 11

Eight years ago, I was at work listening to the radio. The announcer made a comment about a plane flying into the World Trade Center, at first I thought it was a little sightseeing type plane. As more information came over the airwaves it was apparent that it was a large plane, but why did it hit the tower? Then a few minutes later another plane hit the other tower, then later a plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, then a plane crashed into the pentagon. What was happening? and where or what would be hit next? I remember being so aggravated when I heard of the first plane and I could not get Pat off of the phone, he was on a conference call with the owners of our company.

We saw our country go to a new patriotic high, being in the American flag industry, we saw a huge increase in flag sales, everyone wanted to show their patriotism. Glenn Beck has a project called 9 12 project, he wants everyone to remember how they felt on 9/12/01. If we all remembered how we felt that day America might be a better place. I love my country, but I am afraid for the road we are going down.

Pray for our country, May God Bless America !