Keri Jo & Ice Cream Cake

The person of the week is my sister-in-law, Keri Jo Sackett, because she is wonderfully sweet and her birthday was this month. Keri is what I like to call a supermom. She is all about family. She's super involved in her kids' school and extracurricular activities (Noah and Ella are in elementary school); she also chases around my 3 year old nephew (Owen), cares for her newest little addition, my 5 month old niece (Leona), and she still makes time for her girlfriends. I don't know how she has the energy, but somehow she does it all with a smile on her face. And I don't mean one of those "I'm about to jump off a cliff" fake smiles! One of my favorite 'Keri qualities' is that she always enjoys life and does not take a moment of it forgranted!

Ryan and Brittany also came to visit last weekend too so we had lots of reasons to celebrate!

      Keri's favorite birthday treat is ice cream cake. She loves it! So Brittany and I decided to make our first ice cream cake together for Keri's birthday. I am the baker and Brittany is incredibly creative so we made a great team! The ingredients included funfetti cake mix, oreos, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar, egg whites, heavy whipping cream, frosting, sprinkles, and of course, ICE CREAM (strawberry and chocolate chip cookie dough)!

   Then I baked the funfetti cakes (divide batter into two 9" round pans) and let them cool completely. Just follow the directions on the box. I made the crust by crushing oreo cookies and mixing it with cream cheese. Basically, I used the first steps to making oreo truffles. Easy and very delicious! Make sure you press the crust out onto wax paper and then stick it in the freezer.

Next, we added a layer of cookie dough ice cream. Yum! Then a layer of funfetti cake. And then, oh yes, another layer of ice cream. Strawberry this time! Then more funfetti cake, and finally I made whipped vanilla icing to top it off. See all the delicious layers... And finally, our finished product!

Friends and family came over for dinner that night. Sam grilled some very delicious beer burgers. We had fresh asparagus from his parents' garden, and ice cream cake! Sometimes I forget to take pictures when I am entertaining and this was one of those times. I will try to do better.


Pictured below from left to right: Brittany, Aaron (Sam's brother), Nathan (Aaron & Allison's little boy), Glen, and Savannah (Glen & Brooke's 2 month old baby girl)

And the adorable little one pictured below is Drew Kramer. He is Doug and Sarah Kramer's little boy. He is such a happy joyful baby!

My Some Kind of Wonderful

What a great weekend! Brittany and Ryan came to visit good ol' Fort Wayne, IN last Thursday and it was definitely the best weekend of the year thus far. I picked them up from Indy Thursday afternoon and we ate lunch in the heart of downtown by Lucas Oil Stadium (where the Indianapolis Colts play...you know, Payton Manning, Reggie Wayne, etc...).

Funny tidbit: We ate at Panera Bread because Ryan has never eaten at a Panera even though he lives about 5 minutes away from one! Can you believe that?!

Not so funny tidbit: They didn't have sweet tea. WHAAAAAT?! The look on Brittany's face when she heard the news was one of complete sadness and dissappointment. Artificial sweeteners are not the same thing as real sugar, people, but I digress.

Thursday night we went to the TinCaps baseball game. My fellow Arkansans, the TinCaps are very much like the Travelers. They are a minor league professional baseball team and the stadium is new and beautiful. My wonderful husband was able to get great front row seats along the 1st baseline. It was also "Thirsty Thursday" at the ballpark, which means $1 beers!

My favorite part of the game was probably the banana split dippin' dots. For the low price of $5.75 each, Brit and I got commemorative TinCaps full of dippin' dots. Yummy!

Ryan and Sam chatted and watched the game. Brit and I fashion policed the baseball uniforms. Speaking of, if you are a baseball player, stop wearing your uniform like your Granny wears her stretch pants. Enough is enough. Order your pants one size smaller than you think you should and do not pull them down to your ankles. You look ridiculous!

Here are the tin caps our dippin' dots came in. They look small, but looks can be very deceiving!

Now, back to the ridiculous baseball uniforms. If you don't know what I am talking about, please see below in an excerpt I like to call "Who Wore It Better?"

Seriously, is it even a question?! Guy on the left in grey did the right thing by ordering his pants a size smaller than normal and notice he does not have his pants around his ankles (like Granny's stretch pants). Guy on the right....what a mess. Such an embarassment to all women pretending to be baseball fans just to look at cute butts. I'm talking about Brittany, of course!

Come back later to see more pictures and posts from our weekend!

Hummingbird Feeder Fiasco

I bought a hummingbird feeder today. I've always wanted one and I finally got it! My mother-in-law has one and during the spring and summer beautiful hummingbirds are always coming up to her window. Her's has a suction cup on it, which makes it stick to the window. I couldn't find one of those, but I saw one today that I just loved! It was a little heavy because it's made of glass, but that detail didn't bother me in the least...not then anyway. Plus it was on sale for $9.99! Yea! So I came home and thought, "where should I put this beautiful hummingbird feeder?" Then I figured out why it was on sale. Not even a tree branch could hold this thing up! Trust me, I tried. So what's my next idea, you ask? Well duh! The childless swing set, of course! I climbed up the slide. Yes, the way you aren't supposed to and hung it on one of the random 4x4's sticking out the side of the top. Sounds reeeeeeeeal safe, huh?! Well I did not care because I finally had a place for my hummingbirds. One gust of wind later and the thing goes soaring in the air, landed on the grass, and luckily did not break.

Now I'm starting to get annoyed so I called my mother-in-law to get some of advice. After telling her part of my hummingbird feeder fiasco, she told me to get a long stake to hang it on so I could see it from my window. Plus, hanging it low in a tree is easy access for cats. Oh yeah, I completely forgot about seeing the birds from my window. That was the point of getting a feeder in the first place! I love her practical advice! So I go to the Wild Bird store where they have enough bird feeders and bird food to single-handedly conserve the endangered wetlands of America. They were very helpful and I bought a brass rod thing that hooks onto the deck. "Ok, that'll be $28.94," says the bird lady. So much for my bargain, but it was on clearance, and anyways now I have all the necessities to feed the hummingbirds, right? Wrong! Turns out the only place on my deck that I can hook this thing to is on the steps. All the other boards are about 1 inch too long. I should have just bought the flippin' stake to put in the ground...no returns on clearance items!

So now I am just waiting on Sam to get home so I can say, "Hey honey! I spent way too much money buying hummingbird feeder accessories, but at least we have our hummingbird feeder now! By the way, could you build something to go onto the deck so I can position my $30 brass rod hummingbird feeder holder juuuuuuuust right? Oh, and how was your day, sweetheart?"

But I do love this hummingbird feeder and here are a few pictures.

Here is our view from inside the house.

Happy Spring, Ya'll!

No, this isn't our child. This is Leona, our niece. This is the most recent picture I could find of me and Sam, and I want to assure you that we are alive and well.

I sure do love the Spring season! Student teaching is over and I finally have some time to breathe and do fun wife things that I have been neglecting to do (cooking, cleaning, laundry, girls nights, etc). I loved every moment of teaching, but now it is time to get back to the bloggin' world! Tomorrow is Easter Sunday and we plan to have an Easter egg hunt with our nieces and nephews in Fort Wayne. It will be our first Easter as hubby and wife.

Brittany and Ryan, my sister and brother, are coming to visit us in a couple of weeks too! I cannot wait. I plan to spring clean next week to get ready for them!

Here is Ryan earlier today. He sent me a picture from Lake Ouachita. He went striper fishing with family and friends. HUGE fish!

...and here's Brittany!

Last week was Nathan John 1st birthday. I do not have any pictures of him because my camera battery died, but I do have a few pictures of these two cute little girls. Here are Leona Grace Sackett(4 months) and Savannah Katherine Weaver (1 month). They are two little peas in a pod. So cute!

My niece and god-daughter, Leona, was baptized last month. Here are a few pictures. She is so beautiful in her sweet little white dress.

God-mothers, Brooke and Jeni, with Leona.

Owen, Matt, Leona, Keri, Me, and Brooke