So Much to be Thankful For

I know this is a short post but I intended it to be such for a lot of reasons that I may or may not actually get into here. All in all I wanted to just express how thankful I really am. The truth is that I, like most of us out there, have taken a lot for granted in my life. I do not mean to do it, I don't think anyone does, but I am thankful for a great many things.

First and foremost I am thankful for my family in all its varieties and combinations. I am blessed with a loving wife who puts up with me through all of my silly insane moments. She loves me unconditionally and is always patient with me and I cannot tell her enough how thankful I am for that.

I am thankful for my sweet Charity. She really is the light of our lives. We are blessed to have such a happy loving little girl and I want her to know how much her daddy loves her.

I am thankful for my puppies Harley and Lizzie. They have been so good to Charity and so good to us. They help bring a peace and comfort to us even in our hardest times and I do not know where we would be without them.

I am thankful for my parents, my brothers and sisters, Camille's parents and brothers and sisters. Camille and I really are blessed to have families that have been so supportive of us through all that we do.

I am especially thankful for my brother Marcus right now. Long story short we are glad he is with us after such a scare. He has been one of the best parts of my life and I really could not imagine my life without him. He is a brother, a friend, someone I trust and an immense example to me in my life. Our recent experiences with him have reminded me how much and all of my siblings and siblings in law really mean to us.

I love and appreciate our friends far and wide. Mark and Michelle and their family always helping us out and just being there for all of the little things as well as the big ones. Matt and Cathy Hicken and their long-lasting and far-reaching friendship and support. The girls at the salon. The wonderful people at BGM. All of our various friends and family who care enough to genuinely ask us how we are doing.

In this season of thankfulness, love and giving I want everyone that reads this to know that I am eternally thankful for all of my many blessings, especially the blessing of having such wonderful people around me to support me, guide me, and love me in spite of my failing and imperfections.

Thank you all so much and I love you.

....ok so maybe this did not end up as short as I thought it would be.

The Haderlie Birthday Cake

Since there are several birthdays in Camille's family in March and April they are doing a big party today for all of them. Camille decided to put her cake making skills to the test yet again and created a really springy cake complete with daisies. This was our first attempt at some harder flowers.

All of the cake is covered in a white fondant to make the pastel decorations stand out. The bottom tier has colored squres with the center cut out in a flower and decorated with polka dots of the same color.

This close up shows the intricate lavendar piping that Camille did to create this band around the middle tier. Additionally there are pearls of buttercream setting off each of the tiers and the second tier band. This was a really cool feature that I was really happy she came up with. You can see it from a distance in the other pics and either close up or far off it looks amazing.

The sides of the thrid tier are decorated with differently cut colored stripes. On top of the third and top tier is a collection of white and lavendar two-part daisies with yellow buttercream piped in to make the core.

All I can say is that my wife continues to impress me with her creativity and talent at this whole thing. This cake is the same size as our first one which the first time took us 12-13 hours to complete. She did this one in about half the time. We found that making the bottome tier from rice crispy treats and covering it with fondant saves a lot of time and gives a very firm and stable base for the rest of the cake... plus we have not finished all of one of these cakes yet. All I can say is that Camille is amazing.