CuteKittyPunk

One of my weaknesses - is honey butter. I love it with toast, or as a frosting on cake - it's no wonder - what with my love for cinnamon rolls that I would love cinnamon flavored honey butter. First time I made honey butter I used a recipe from Make a Mix Cookery that had a lot of honey in it. So it's no wonder I loved it. But since then, I make it with quite a lot less honey and I found that it really pops when you add other flavors to it. I use a combination of some of my favorite spices and liquid extracts. I don't really measure anything - this is kind of a taste and adjust to taste kind of recipe. First, use biological butter - or in other words butter from grass fed cows (if possible). Also, we are lucky that in Europe the laws regarding honey are that it does not need to be pasteurized - so it's very easy to find raw honey here. I didn't know that at first, but with some searching I found this to be true. And recently I've even found ver...

My little girl had a birthday recently and requested a Bumba themed cake. Bumba is a clown from the Belgium network - Studio 100 . The kids really like this little clown. I was happy to make the cake - it was easy and turned out really nice. I used the recipe from The Church Cook - Pumpkin spice layer cake with cream cheese buttercream frosting and it was delicious. I just colored some of the frosting the colors I needed and added extra powdered sugar and cornstarch until it was a consistency in which I could roll it up into a ball for the nose, or flatten it out and make shapes like the star-shaped hair, eyes, mouth, dots, and hearts.

Have you noticed how a lot of bloggers are trying to be the next food blogging star? How they are trying really hard to get followers by doing give-aways and stuff like that? It's real easy to fall in that trap. I was in that trap for like a few weeks. I was like, I gotta post at least two times every week if people are gonna "follow me" and I gotta take really good photos so that my photos don't get rejected on foodgawker and tastespotting... And I gotta do give-aways. How do I do that? Do I gotta buy stuff myself for that? How do I get someone to sponsor that? And then, I just sort of wondered why I was doing that - why I got caught up in that snare? Because for me it is a snare. It was taking me away from my family and my personal goals. So, you know how I cured myself of this idol worship? I stopped following so many other food bloggers. And I started on a personal project. I've been reading this book called Fascination Womanhood - it's really inter...

So, I just had a baby not more than 3 months ago... and I really need to SLOW DOWN. Like Ferris Beuller says: Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. And I was wondering, how did I get distracted so easily? What matters most? My faith, my family, my friends. This baking thing - is really last of all. But for a moment there, it caught hold of me - I got caught up in "following" all these cooking and baking blogs - and in posting on foodie websites like foodieblogroll, ptitchef and foodbuzz - and for what? For my pride.... ewwww. I fell for it. And I know that it was Satan all along trying to lead me astray. He is so evil - and tricky - how he takes something virtuous and good and turns it into a vice. So, I was listening to a couple talks from this last General Conference. And I took notes and it really helped me reflect on what matters most. President Uchtdorf is so funny - he has a nice way of teaching - I lov...

So, today we got a day off school/work because it's "Tweede Pinksterdag" aka Pentacost. Well, Pentacost was yesterday but it's also observed Monday so most everyone gets a paid holiday. Thank goodness for the Catholics - if it wasn't for them we wouldn't have so many fun days off. And of course, thank goodness for Jesus :) So, we planned to visit a castle today. We went to a beautiful castle called Heeswijk . It was a nice location, too because it was really out there away from other cities and towns. We told Kailea in advance that we'd go see a castle today and she was really happy about that. She even came into my room this morning to tell me: I was on the phone with the Princess. I told her I was coming to the Castle to see her. Ahh, so cute. So she was really looking forward to it. We took a detour so it took probably 10 minutes longer to get there but well worth it. And then we almost didn't have enough money to go inside. Luckily, Ella didn...

Kailea and Ella stayed and played at a neighbors house while I did a bit of grocery shopping today. Here is a picture that was snapped of them sitting on the couch watching Beauty and The Beast. Kailea was completely absorbed in this movie - and even a bit scared - she's definitely scared of the Beast but cannot take her eyes off of him and wiggling in her chair at the same time from fear. It's kind of funny. The boys were not phased by it at all. Ella kept hitting the younger boy and trying to knock his glasses off. Luckily that didn't bother him either. In fact, my friend said that at one point the boys were fighting over who got to sit next to Ella. They really adore her. I think older kids just like babies though. Because girls Ella's age are funny. They are exploring and knocking things around. Throwing mangoes on the floor. They can't really talk yet. And kids just think that's funny. Babies certainly are amusing. 

I love being a mom. It's so much fun and at the same time - very tiring and hard work, too. But the kiddos are in bed now and that leaves time for... me time! Kailea is 4 years old. She hardly ever cuddles with me - that doesn't mean that she doesn't constantly want my attention though. But today, she stubbed her toe on the corner of the wall and she was crying real good... and I said, you want to hug. And she did - and we cuddled for a little while. It was nice. Ella on the other hand, loves to cuddle. She's that age. And just last night she even started giving kisses. They were, of course, slobbery and runny nosed  - nevertheless - she is kissing back. And that is so sweet. She's also playing very well on her own these days and loves to explore - explore - explore! She's our own little "Dora the explorer" - she's out to discover! And to get into trouble... she colored with green marking pen on our white walls. That's it... for now on, peo...