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 !

Pirate party

I forgot to post these earlier in the week like I promised. The party was a lot of fun and the kids had a great time on their treasure hunt. They are all dressed up in their pirate costume and ready to search for the treasure.
I wonder what we will do next year to top this party?

Happy Birthday Henry !!!

Happy Birthday Henry !!!

Three years ago today our oldest Daughter gave birth to our first grandson.

Henry is the first boy to be born to our family. He has a special place in our heart.

We will be celebrating his birthday on Monday when the our family gets together for a picnic on Labor Day. Henry loves sharks and pirates, so we will be having a cake with pirates and sharks on it, (picture to follow on Monday), a treasure hunt and pirate food to eat.

Henry is a sweet boy and he is funny too. Sarah takes a lot of pictures of him, and does a great job making little videos, she has a great video on her blog if you would like to see it.

This is a picture of Pat and I holding Henry, 5 days old.

This picture is from Easter of this year.

New picture from Sarah's Alphabet Book.

Love You, Happy Birthday Henry !!!

Our Weekend in Edisto

This is where we stayed this time, This part of the resort is called the village. We were on the second floor unit.We had to climb two flights of stairs, I got my exercise in!
We shopped at the only grocery in town, "the Pig"

We cooked someting new, Blintzes, they were absolutely delicous, I will write another Blog about them later.

We went for a ride to Botiny Bay Plantation, drove down this dirt road lined with live oaks and spanish moss.

We went to the beach, we found a few shells (LOL)

We saw a few squadrons of Pelicans fly overhead, there was 19 in this group.

Watched the sunset, and looked for Dolphins.

Another sunset, just beautiful !!!!

The happy couple after a few days of rest and relaxation!!

We had a great time. We just hung out by the pool and the beach, drove around a little, discovered a few new things. Tried a couple of new restaurants, tried a new recipe.

5 Minute Chocolate Mug Cake

Have you ever been craving a piece of Chocolate cake, but there is none to be found? You don't have time to bake a cake, and you don't want to drive to the grocery store. Well here is a quick dessert you can make in 5 minutes. I got this recipe from one of the ladies in my Esther Bible study, we all shared a favorite recipe, this is the one that Heather shared.

Ingredients:
4 tbsp flour
4 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp cocoa
1 egg
3 tbsp milk
3 tbsp oil
3 tbsp choc. chips
splash of vanilla
1 large coffee mug

Directions :
Mix dry ingredients in Mug, add egg, mix well, add oil and milk mix well. Add choc chips and vanilla, mix again. Put mug in microwave, cook 3 minutes, the cake will rise above the top of the mug do not be alarmed. Allow to cool slightly, dump out on plate, serve with vanilla ice cream.

We enjoyed it, and thought it was a good quick dessert and it was fun to make. One cake is plenty for two.

Woman of Joy

I am looking forward to next years Woman of Joy conference. This will be the fifth year that I have gone. The first year that I went was in 2006, I went with Sarah and her church, I enjoyed it so much that I organized the women from my church to go the following year. We will be having a get together on September 11 to determine the location and date that we want to plan for next spring. The conference is held by Phil Waldrep Ministries, I think there was 6,000 ladies at the conference this past May. Below is a picture of our group. I wish we would have gotten a better group shot than this one, but this was really the only time that we were all together at the same time. I invited everyone over to the condo that I had reserved for my daughters and I to stay at. I made dinner for everyone, it was a great time of fellowship. If we go back to Sevierville, TN next year I will reserve a large cabin for all of us to stay in for the whole weekend, the fellowship will be wonderful !

I am really hoping more ladies will attend in 2010, it is a weekend that you will remember for a long time.

Linda

Happy Birthday Will

Friday August 14 is our son in law Will's birthday.

Soon after we moved to Gaffney Kelly and Will began dating.

I guess it was love at first sight. They were married in 2000.

I'm not sure how old this photo is but it was taken a while ago.

Will has a good sense of humor, here he is holding up the hot air balloon. He and Pat get along very well, always joking together. Will is a teacher, this year his duty is changing, he has been promoted from seventh grade to tenth. Please pray for him as he learns how to respond to older students.
One of Will's favorite things is Bamboo. He and Kelly have a forest of Bamboo behind their house. Will is constantly building things out of it. This picture was taken at our July 4 BBQ cookoff, he has a bamboo windchime as well as a table built out of bamboo ( you can see just a corner of it in the picture).

Will has written a book, we are waiting to hear about that right now. He also likes to play cards, light bonfires, he likes superheros and pirates. He loves the Lord and his family, Will is a great husband and father. I am proud to call him Son. Happy Birthday !

Happy Anniversary Becky and Jeff

Happy Anniversary Becky and Jeff !

August 11, 2007

August 11, 2009

2 years

Have fun on your anniversary trip, enjoy the time by yourselves.

We love you !!!

It is hard to believe how much the boys have grown up since this picture was taken.