Christmas time is here!

Tis the season to be jolly!!! This is one of my favorite times of the year! Pretty lights, Christmas decorations, stockings, and lets not forget all of the wonderful Christmas FOOD!! Really I love any holiday or any other day when I get to bake. I love to try new things and bake something absolutely delicious for any gathering. This year I have become obsessed with red velvet, and all things made red velvet style. Anything from red velvet cake, red velvet cake balls, and something I am especially excited to try out red velvet brownies. I will be making them for one of the holiday gatherings this year!!! This week (I know I have been a slacker in the posing department, but really I am going to do this) I am going to post a recipe that I am excited about making .....and who knows if your really lucky.....I will even post two in one day!! Today it is Red Velvet Brownies!! I will let you know how they turn out as soon as I make them, but for now here is the recipe...it was featured in this months Southern Living magazine (one of my favorite magazines...since I'm a southern belle!)

Red Velvet Brownies
1 4oz. bittersweet chocolate baking bar, chopped
3/4 c. butter
2 c. sugar
4 large eggs
1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 1oz. bottle red liquid food coloring
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. vanilla
small batch cream cheese frosting
white chocolate curls to garnish

Preheat oven to 350°. Line bottom and sides of 9" square pan with foil, allowing 2-3 inches to extend over sides. Grease foil.
Microwave chocolate and butter in a large microwave safe bowl at high 1 1/2 - 2 minutes or until melted and smooth, stirring at 30 second intervals. Whisk in sugar. Add eggs, 1 at a time, whisking just until blended after each addition. Stir in flour, and next 4 ingredients. Pour mixture into prepared pan.
Bake at 350° for 44 to 48 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out with a few moist crumbs. Cool completely on a wire rack. (about 2 hours)
Lift brownies from pan, using foil sides as handles; gently remove foil. Spread small batch cream cheese frosting on top of Brownies, and cut into 16 squares. Garnish with chocolate curls.

Small-Batch Cream Cheese Frosting
1 8oz. package cream cheese frosting
3 T. butter softened
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
1/8 t. salt
1 t. vanilla extract

Beat cream cheese and butter together until creamy, gradually add powdered sugar and salt, beating until blended , stir in vanilla.

Hope you enjoy them...I know I will :)

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is here!! This year I have so many things to be thankful for...for me the thing that I am most thankful for is my wonderful husband. He has endless faith in me. So when I told him my crazy plan to stay at home with the boys, instead of saying your crazy!!! NO WAY!! He went with it! And even when our plan didn't quite work out like I had planned, he didn't even complain he just said we will figure it out... and then he did! Staying home with the boys is probably the best gift he has ever given me, I am loving it! Even thou we don't get to see him as much as we would like, staying home is working out really well for us. The boys are happier, and so are Wes and I, it was the best decision we have ever made.
Our house is smelling so wonderful tonight! I have lots of sweet treats baking tonight for our dinner with my mom's side of the family tomorrow! This year we will be going to my Granny Ree's house and to Wesley's mom's house on Sunday for another Thanksgiving celebration. So that means lots, and LOTS of great food to eat!! We are very blessed in our family with some very wonderful cooks, over eating is a huge problem when we get together! Which can be a good thing sometimes.
So in honor of Thanksgiving what are you most thankful for this year??? Here is my top 10 list....
1. Wesley~his love, support, endless faith, strength, & kindness

2. Brody & Marak~ their love for us and each other, sweetness, stubborn, onry, & kindness. For their timing, they came when I needed them most and didn't even know it.

3. My family~immediate, distant, and even in-laws!

4. My courageous mother~ her strength, faith, wisdom, dependability, love, & her ability to move mountains with her prayers.

5. Blessings~ For all of the unexpected ones we have received.

6. Acceptance~ The ability to accept things I have no control over and the strength to move past.

7. 25 years~ The time I had getting to know one of the most wonderful men on the planet...my grandfather.

8. 2 in 2~ having 2 boys in 2 years

9. Chocolate- It's just a daily necessity

10.Timeouts!~ Like Chocolate it is a daily necessity with a 2 year old and a 1 year old. :)

Hope you all have a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving!

Potty Training

We have hit a milestone here at the Seymour house. Our oldest little boy has begun an adventure of a life time, well at least his biggest adventure so far....Potty training. I was not so sure what to expect going into it, or really the do's or don'ts of training someone to potty. And since I stay home with them, and Wes is working a lot, I knew it would be mostly up to me to get him trained. My biggest fear of the potty training was what to do when we go in public?? Since 75% of the time it would just be me with the boys, and Marak is SO hard to keep still or even to get him to listen. Marak is what I like to call a runner, as soon as he gets the chance to be out of the shopping basket or stroller, he runs for dear life to get away and explore. So after several weeks of pottying at home and having him be able to tell me when he needs to go, and not having any accidents, I decided to test it out in public. I decided my best shot of this would be late morning when everyone is at work. So we went to walmart.....as soon as we got there I asked Brody if he had to go and he said yes. So off to the bathroom we went! And as I guessed, as soon as Marak was down and in the bathroom he tried to make a run for it. But after a stern talking to and giving him the stink eye he complied and watched his big brother go potty! It was a success!! So now going out in public with a potty trainer isn't so bad. Brody has really done very well, and we have had only 1 accident in 2 weeks! He is even taking naps in underwear. I am so proud of my little pottier!

Cakes Cakes and more Cakes!

My second week off work, has been a very busy one. I have had more cakes due this week than I ever have had before. Which is really exciting, because I started off the month not having any due.

For some reason I just love this photo, it pretty much sums up how my week went. In case you are wondering in the buckets is frosting and fondant. In the walmart sacks is cake mix, and all of the rest of the stuff on the table would be cake boards, cake sketches, and other misc. cake things.

The week started off with my little brother's 16th Birthday. And what else would a 16 year old want for a cake?? Monster Energy drink cake!! When I asked my little brother what kind of a cake he wanted he said, "Monster!" So I immediately think of the big blue/green monster from Monster's Inc.....Sully! And I thought, he is SO weird!!! Why in the world would he want a Monster's Inc cake? That is SO un-cool! So as I prepared to make him a Sully cake, my mom called and I was talking to her about it, and she clarified he wanted the "Monster Energy Drink" as a cake. Could you imagine me showing up with a huge Sully cake in front of all of his friends, he probably would have never talked to me again!! In my world of Dora and wonderpets, if you tell me you want a Monster cake, I am just going to think of that big blue/green monster! Sorry! That's just how it goes around here!

This is a close up view of the wedding cake I made for Wesley's sister Danielle. I must admit I wasn't too excited about this one, I just could not envision it. But it turned out so pretty.

This was Wendall's grooms cake. He is a hunter if you couldn't guess. My boys loved this one! They stole the deer off the cake when we were cutting into it. Hee hee! This cake was by far one of my favorites because I actually got to eat this one and it was so delish! It was chocolate cake with a chocolate mocha maple frosting. And it was so moist it just melted in your mouth....Divine!




This is the full view of Danielle's cake. Turned out pretty good, it even survived the way down from the house. The wedding was about an hour away from our house at a Lake. This cake was Vanilla with Buttercream frosting. Classic Wedding cake!

And for those of you not on the Twilight Saga bandwagon. This cake is a Twilight cake, it is based off the four book covers. I made this cake for my dear sweet cousin Jadynn, she turned 8 this year and loves Twilight. So I was really excited to make this one, because I too love Twilight. This cake turned out better than I thought, I had no idea how I was going to make the chess piece or the apple.

And last but not least.....this lovely little cake is one I made for a baby shower. This one kind of grew on me, I would have loved it more had it been in fondant. I am getting so used to making cakes in fondant, that I really don't like just the plain buttercream ones anymore. But this one turned out just beautiful and simple. I love the colors in this one. Very classy!

Sooner Nation

If you do not live in Oklahoma and you are waking up this morning hearing a faint roar in the distance, do not be alarmed! That sound you are hearing would be the chanting of the Sooner Nation yelling out BOOMER..SOONER...BOOMER..SOONER over our TEXAS victory!!! If you do not live in Oklahoma you may not understand why this game is so important. But if you do, then you are as excited as I am for the victory!! This year was my first time ever to go to the game. And up until now, every Sooner fan I know has told me that before I die it is a must do on your bucket list! And I would have to say that I would agree! It was by far such an amazing experience. The whole day was fun, there is nothing like taunting the other team with Texas SUCKS!!! I went this year with my 7? year old grandmother (the "?" is becuase I am not allowed to discuss her true age, she knows she is old but no one is supposed to know...not even I) You are probably wondering what an 7? year old grandma is doing at such an event, but you have never met my grandmother. She has had season tickets to OU since the sixties. And since then she has only missed two games. Both because of my grandfather being sick, which she was not and I repeat NOT happy about!!! If you are in our family you know NOT to plan anything on a home game or she will not be there. And if its an away game, you better not think about it either! She once came to my cousin Johnny's wedding with a radio headset so she could listen to OU vs. Nebraska while the wedding was going on. I am pretty sure she even yelled out a big YES when they said I DO because OU scored!! She has been known to leave the birth of her great-grandchildren to go to OU vs. Texas!! She is the meaning of die hard fan. So going to the games with her is a lot of fun! She does the wave, the OOOOOOOOUUUUU!!!, the BOOMER SOONER, high fives when we score, and chants " hey ref you suck!! She can name off any football stat, or any information on the players and their family! She has amazing football knowledge!
So going with her made the game even better. The game is held at the cotton bowl while the Texas state fair is going on. So when you get there you can ride the rides, eat the fair food, and enjoy the great game. The game was awesome we stayed ahead the whole game which is always nice. We almost gave it up in the end with the two fumbles, but then our SOONER magic came into play and we recovered it. Thank goodness!! All in all it was a great day!

Staying Home

It is official....I am now a stay at home mom!!! I finally made the leap to leave the corporate world for the potty training world. Monday was my first official day at home, and we celebrated with a trip to the zoo! We had so much fun. My grandmother, mom and little brother came with us. The boys were so good, they hardly made a peep! They were so excited about seeing all of the animals. It was such a wonderful way to celebrate being a stay at home mom. The rest of the week has been pretty busy, much more than I thought it would be. It is so relaxing to not have to plan anything and not worry about the silly things like, pricing hose kits and planning productions schedules. My days used to filled with such stress, if I couldn't make things happen then a major oil company would have a unit down and be out tons of money. Now may days are filled with potty training, the wonder pets, baking cakes, and two precious little boys. SO MUCH BETTER!

The cakes have picked up so much. Next week I have a baby shower cake, wedding cake, grooms cake, and a birthday cake...oops make that two birthday cakes. So it will be busy and the little boys will be excited to taste test the cake batter and the frosting. And I will get to anxiously await hearing Brody say... "Mom this is really good birthday party!" As he is licking cake batter off of the whippers. He says it every time I make cake, and I just love hearing it! I have started a website for the cake business, if you would like to check it out you can go to http://www.katycakes.org/. I am also thinking about opening an account on etsy.com and selling fondant cupcake toppers. Does any of you use etsy to sell anything on it? Or have even heard of etsy?

Well now that I am staying home be looking forward to much more smelly boy stories, and some baking too!!

The cake business is getting busier and busier! My latest project is for a very special man. He is not only the pastor of First Baptist Church of Dale, the principle of Harrah Middle School, but he is the father of a very good friend of mine. He is by far one of the nicest people I have ever met. This year is a very important birthday for Big Doug because, he is turning the big 5-0!! I hope you enjoy!!