Cookie Cake

As most of the people in my world know, I love to spend time in the kitchen I love to cook! However, I especially LOVE to bake. Baking has become my passion in life! I often get requests for recipes so I thought you know what, my blog is the perfect place for this.
Now, this one was inspired by a picture I saw on Pinterest and I thought to myself, I could do that no problem!
The cake part was simple I made a mixed a box of Devil's Food Cake and a box of Butter Yellow Cake and I poured half of each mixture into a cake pan and swirled it around so that batter looked a little like marble. While the cake was baking I whipped up a batch of my favorite chocolate chip cookie dough (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/original-nestle-toll-house-chocolate-chip-cookies/) I made very small cookie dough balls out of the whole batch, however I set about 20 of the balls aside and let them sit in the refrigerator for a little while and put the others one a cookie sheet so they were ready to go in the oven.
Once the cake was done baking I started baking the cookies and making the frosting for the cake I used this one (http://www.marthastewart.com/336452/billys-vanilla-buttercream) gotta love Martha!!
After the cake had completely cooled it was time to assemble!
*Tip for frosting a cake, when I frost a cake I will tear 4 strips of wax paper and make a square to cover the outer edges of the plate and then place the cake on top of those, this way while you are frosting the cake anything that drips will hit the wax paper and when you are done you can simply pull it away and your plate is spotless!!
The best part about this cake is the filling, because not only was it the delicious buttercream frosting, it is the cookie dough balls from the fridge - genius!
After frosting the cake all around I took the little cookies that I had baked (once they were cooled of course) and placed them on top of and around the cake.
The cake was then sprinkled with mini-chocolate chips!

What I loved about this cake besides that it was delicious was that it looked pretty, I took this one as dessert to Thanksgiving dinner!

Why do I wait so long between posts

I've come to the conclusion I'm a bad blogger, I have all these great ideas and things I want to say, but I never actually take the time to sit down here and post them. I've decided I must get better about it - this will be a New Year's Resoluion so what if it's only December gives me an extra month to practice right?
Things have been pretty great here at the Dede/Wright House!! I've been super busy during the day with my various and assorted PTA board duties and most nights I'm at the dance studio with my dancing diva and you know what I couldn't be happier about it!
Where can I start with an update - let's see how about Thanksgiving. It was wonderful as always, although this year much quieter (not to mention roomier at the table) since we were missing 5 people. Last year we were so many people we had to have 2 tables and this year we didn't even need both leaves in one table. Although we were less people this year, Sean was actually able to be with us for dinner on Turkey day, I haven't actually eaten Turkey dinner with him since our first Thanksgiving together in 2007!! So for me it was a positively perfect day!
Right after Thanksgiving was of course Apple Cup which was spent at psuedo big brother Brian's house. Sean was able to come to most of that as well. He and I were the only ones there sporting Crimson and Grey and while it looked very bleak for my Cougs they managed a win, however by the time the game was over I was the lone Coug in a room of Purple & Gold, and man did I enjoy gloating about my win :-)
Since the day after Thanksgiving is the official start of the Christmas season we decided to put all the decorations up! This is seriously my favorite time of year. Sean complains and grumbles about the 678 Christmas boxes in the attic (ok so it's not that many, but it seems like it when we're trying to get them down) but I love it! I love unpacking all the knick-knacks and ornaments and thinking about when we got them and the stories behind so many of them. I also love telling Lilly the stories it's such an awesome thing to be able to have all these great memories and share them with my entire family. Ah but I digress so since Sean, Lilly, and I moved in with Mom & Dad not only do we have all the decorations I grew up with, but we also have the decorations that Sean and I had acquired while living in our condo. So now the house has 4 Christmas trees, yep you heard me right 4 trees! We have the main tree in the living room filled with the most random assortment of ornaments you will ever see, and it is everyone's favorite. In the entry way is the first tree Sean and I had it's about 3 feet tall, but hey those artificial trees can be spendy and it's what we could afford at the time! The entry way tree is decorated in traditional Christmas colors or red, gree, and gold. In the family room is the 2nd tree Sean and I acquired after we got married, well actually I acquired it during his deployment. It is much taller, but kinda thing. Since this tree was purchased while Sean was deployed and I was feeling particularly patriotic that year that tree's ornaments are red, white, and blue. The good news there is the family room is also particularly patriotic so it fits in quite well there! The 4th and final tree is a little over 2 feet tall and was purchased on sale last year and it resides in Lilly's room. Since this is of course her tree she got to pick all the ornamets and here's a shocker they are all silver and pink, complete with a glittery pink star on top and a pink tree skirt. I smile just thinking about her cute little tree. Before I post again I will take some pics so you can see how Christmasy our house is!
I'm getting very excited for the holiday season, it's going to be filled with amazing times with my friends and family and a lot of fun adventures!!!

Friendship Blinders

How many of us have had a case of these?
Where you are so focused on trying to make a friend want to spend time with you and simply be your friend that you don't see the hell they are putting you through.
I've done some friend-purging lately - some not entirely my choice but maybe it's for the best.
Once my blinders were lifted I couldn't believe all of the things I didn't see before. Friends do not treat people like the piece of dirt stuck to the wad of gum that is on the bottom of your shoe!
Blinders didn't allow me to see so many things; phone calls that should have happened when my Dad had a health scare over the Summer, Lies being told about Sean & I that would eventually cause me to question Sean's faithfullness to me and my trust in him, understanding why I'm not around as much has nothing to do with feelings and everything to do with my daughter and hers, not to mention trash talking my life choices behind my back while supporting them to my face.
We are not in high school anymore, life is to short for friends who thrive on petty bullshit drama. Friends that feel the need to put you through hell and back for their own amusement is like the unpopular girl getting picked on my the cheerleader - who needs that kind of relationship? I am a Mom, and a wife - these are my priorities not trying to so hard to make a friend want to spend time with me that I neglect the other things in my life. When I became a mother and then a wife those "duties" because top priorites in my life. Being there for my daughter and husband have to come first and having a friend who can't see that and only sees what they want to is not having a friend at all!
A true friend is what lifted my blinders, a friend who is my friend because they cared about me, and not only me, but my entire family. It made me remember what it was like to have a truely wonderful friend. A reminder of house easy friendship is supposed to be, I don't need to impress, I don't need to jump through hoops, and I don't need to be a person I don't want to be.
Life is hard enough between raising a child, being a good wife, fullfilling all my committments, and taking care of a house I don't need my friends to be a challenge.
My advice is take the blinders off, really examine your friends and the relationship you have with them. Are they making you work for your friendship or do they just simply love you. If you have to work for it, it's not friendship!

Sleepovers

Little girls, is there anything more awesome?
The older Lilly the gets the more I appreciate the above statement. The things they talk about, the things they say it's just the best!!
This past weekend Lilly had her dance bff over for a sleepover, and of course the amount of sleeping was at a minimum! We took the girls to a football game and they ran around the played the ENTIRE time - you would think that would have tired them out, nope not at all!
As soon as we got home from the game and the girls got out of their wet clothes and into their PJ's it was dance party USA in Lilly's room followed by whispering and giggling.
When Sean checked on the girls sometime after 1:00AM they were finally passed out from exhaustion both of them sound asleep in Lilly's bed.
In the morning after a delicious breakfast of chocolate muffins the girls resumed their fun up in Lilly's room. Which ended up looking like a tornado went through it when they were all done and was I mad, nope in fact it put a smile on my face.
As I sit back and look back at the weekend I giggle. I love watching Lilly and her friends interact. I am always entertained by their conversations and their wild imaginations. Everyone should have the opportunity to stop and listen to their children and the wonderful things they say, I'm telling you it's more theraputic than stopping to smell the roses :-)

My college degree

I graduated from college in 2004 with a degree from the UW/WSU in PR/Marketing. I worked until 2008 when the economy tanked the the small (we're talking under 12 people) company I was working for was forced to lay me off (last hired, first fired fun!) anyway at that point Sean was on his first deployment in Iraq and we decided well maybe I should just stay home with Lilly since most of my paycheck was going towards gas, lunches, and day care for Lilly. At first this idea was a little new and scary to me, but I adapted and now I love having the ability to not only be home for my daughter whenever she needs me, but that also allows me to be on the PTA Board, chair some committees, be on the Little League Board, volunteer in her classroom, coach softball, as well as take care of a household where 5 people live :-)
I have gone of track a little bit, anyway I've recently realized that I use my college degree way more now that when I was working - how crazy is that! Between publishing a newsletter once a month, doing a bulletin board to showcase the PTA once a month, designing flyers for our PTA functions, and taking on an entire rewards program for our amazing readers I use a lot of those PR/Marketing skills in order to make newletters that don't look like they were done by a 5 year old, flyers that are not only eye catching, but understandable, and having a bulletin board that looks fun, but also conveys a lot of important information.
It's rewarding being able to do all these things, all things that I enjoy and have fun doing and know that I am actually using the things I learned in college!
For example this year the PTA has decided to take on the AR Rewards program at school since we have a new librarian who was not familiar with how the program was ran and it is something we all feel very strongly about and wanted to make sure all the kids still benefited from this amazing program. I am currently running the program and I gotta say I'm having so much fun with it! I got to design T-shirts, Bookmarks, Certificates, and make things that are being displayed in the library - not to mention coming up with an entire theme for everything. It's awesome!!
Some people may think that people who go to college and then become a stay-at-home parent have not done their degree justice and only wasted their time in college and I will admit before I became a Mom I was one of those people. I always had respect for those people who made it their life's work to devote themselves to their children and give back to the organizations that their kids were involved in, but I never quite understood it. I used to be a career minded person thinking that what you did for a living and the paycheck you brought home defined who you were as a person - boy was I wrong. It's about how you live your life, how you choose to spend your time. People that choose to spend their time doing things that benefit their family, and their community deserve praise and support - and I would be saying that even if I wasn't one of those people.

Updated Look/Title and Drill Weekend

I realized over the weekend how much I missed blogging, I mean where else can I go on and on and nobody interupts me, needs me to fix somthing, cook something, or help with something!!
Since it's been so long since my last post I decided that  new look and title were in order so I hope you enjoy.
I won't bore you with all the changes and updates that have occured since my last post I prefer to just start fresh like we were in the middle of a conversation that had a slight pause :-)
This past weekend was drill weekend, which means I am husbandless for 2-3 days. Lilly loves drill weekends because not only does Sean leave his Kindle Fire home for her to play with she also tends to sleep in my bed with me for some Mommy/Daughter cuddle time (and I'm not gonna lie I love that, because she's not gonna be little and want to do that forever).
The best part about drill weekends are my amazing friends who keep me entertained and busy while my hubby is out shooting machine guns and blowing things up for the US government.
Friday night was very similiar to every other Friday night this fall which meant going to watch my psuedo-nephew Kain's Varsity Football game. While I had fun with most of the Davis clan, and chatting with my awesome friends, and of course teasing those who needed to be teased we didn't pay too close attention to the game because when the score is over 40-0 and half time you're pretty sure you're team is gonna win. We did pay attention when Kain played, and he actually got to play in the 1st half of the game for the first time all season so that was pretty awesome! After the game we went to Red Robin for some grub, drinks, and laughter. Kain came along with us and kept us all very etertained with his fantastic sense of humor.
This past week was Lilly's 8th birthday and party of her birthday tradition is my Mom & I take her and her besties to lunch at Lilly's Mecca (the American Girl Store). If I thought my time and Red Robin was entertaining the night before it was nothing compared to the conversations had at lunch with an 8, 7, and 6 year old. Those girls are just fabulous. Mom & I did not stop laughing the whole time!!
Saturday night was a special treat, my amazing friend Danielle and I went to the Carrie Underwood concert all thanks to her equally amazing new boyfriend Brannon. We got all dressed up (our outfits even matched, unplanned!) in our cowboy hats, and boots and headed downtown. The concert was soooooo great! Carrie is an AMAZING performer and she put on such an awesome show! I don't think we could have had more fun!!
Sunday, or should I call it FootballDay? Every Sunday is spent at Danielle's for Football and Food. We all cram in her living room bring delicious treats to share and cheer on our Seattle Seahawks, this week they won so we were all very happy campers! I am not allowed to enter Danielle's house unless I have brought dessert! My friends call me the dessert queen due to my baking skills that they have all fallen in love with :-)
On drill weekends Sean actually gets to come and watch about half the football game with us as he gets released with enough time to make it over for the second half and of course chow down on some delicious grub.
I love the Sunday nights of drill weekends the best! After Sean has been gone for 2 nights there is nothing better than crawling into bed with him and feeling his arms around me! Plus he work weekends are Mondays & Tuesdays which means I get to spend lots of time with him, which is why I am hurrying to finish this blog so I can go spends some QT with my wonderful hubby!

Missing Sean

So as some of you may know Sean has been gone for about a week now. No, it has nothing to do with the army!
Background: Back in March Sean saw an ad on craigs list for a temporary security job to work during the potential upcoming teamsters strike with waste management. The guys doing the hiring liked Sean's resume so he was selected to go work. This required him to move into a hotel downtown - kinda sucks! Well after almost a week of having a full staffed ready to go security team and no strike waste management sent most of the guys back home and put them on stand-by.
This brings me to last week when the teamsters decided to go on strike. This meant Sean got called up. This time he was sent to the Woodinville area, which is good since that's closer. The teamsters did not stay strike for very long (about a day). When we first heard the strike ended we thought they'd be sending Sean home - no such luck! The guys are being kept on (at least for now)
Poor Sean has been working a 4PM-4AM shift since last Wednesday - YUCK!
The job will be some good experience for him and will look great on his resume, especially while trying to get hired on at police departments. The PD's love things like army, and security guard experience!!!
Kinda sucks not having him around, at least it's not like when he was in Iraq!!! He was actually able to make it up to Lilly's T-ball game on Saturday which of course made her day (and mine!)
I've decided that Sean and I have a really strong relationship we've been through soooooo much over the span of many years and at the end of the day we know that our relationship is great and to hell with what anyone else thinks!