Death By Chocolate Cake

When I came across a similar cake on Pinterest I knew that I had to add this one to the arsenal of creations I wanted to make for the dessert auction at our church. I've been itching for a reason to make this cake, and raising money for a missions team seemed like the perfect cause!

I now present to you:

Death By Chocolate Cake

Here's how I made it:

I baked a two triple chocolate fudge cakes separately in a 12 cup bundt pan. I originally intended to use a round pan but I couldn't locate my round pans when started to work on this cake, but I could find a random bundt pan... go figure! This kind of describes my life sometimes!

I used two boxed cake mixes. Because, well, boxed cake is easier than homemade cake. I was going for the cutest look I could muster in the shortest period of time since I was also working on several other cakes simultaneously. Feel free to substitute your favorite recipe in here instead.

And I used two because the cake wasn't dramatic enough for me with just one layer. I placed the cooled layers bottom sides together with a layer of frosting in between. You may notice that my cake layers are different colors. That's because they're two different brands of triple chocolate fudge cake mix. One was Duncan Heines, one was Betty Crocker. I had only anticipated doing one layer, but luckily I already had another box of the same kind of cake mix on hand, which made the decision to do two layers a little easier.

Using two different brands meant that I didn't have to shower or get out of my pajamas to run to the store. That's my kind of fix to a precarious dilemma! Who cares if the layers don't match when it's topped with 182 pounds of chocolate?

Then I frosted each layer with... yup, you guessed it... canned chocolate frosting. I put a thick layer of chocolate frosting around the edges and embedded a blend of milk chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate and dark chocolate chips, as well as dark chocolate chunks into the side by grabbing a handful of chips at a time and literally smashing them against the side of the cake.

Obviously you could use just one kind of chocolate chip, but I thought I'd shake things up a little, and I had a lot of random baking chips on hand from my holiday baking.

If your house is too warm or frosting is too thin the chips might fall right off. If need be, briefly (just a minute or two) refrigerate the frosted cake before putting the chips on. Or put the chips on then refrigerate for a few minutes to help them set securely in the side of the cake.

Next I grabbed some random chocolate candies that I thought would compliment each other well. I got a big box of whoppers, some mini reeses peanut butter cups (which I thought looked extra cool!) and a package of mini sized candy bars that included twix, milky way, milky way dark, snickers and 3 musketeers. I also grabbed a few brown m&m's and some mini chocolate chips from our stash on hand to fill in the little gaps. 

I set the whoppers haphazardly in a circle around the cake to give some definition to where the top ended and the sides should begin. I also thought the melted chocolate would look cool coming over the rounded candies. Then I made an attempt to evenly distribute the other candies throughout starting with the largest pieces first and filling in the gaps with the smaller ones.  

After I got all of the candies placed neatly (yet randomly) on top, I melted some chocolate melty wafers (though chocolate chips or almond bark would do as well) and piped it in a criss cross pattern across the top. I tried not to put too much melted chocolate on top so the individual candies would still be noticeable. 

You can do this by melting the chocolate and placing it in a ziplock baggie, then making a small cut in the corner of the bag.

Finally,  I generously drizzled the melted chocolate over the sides making sure to let some of the chocolate fall toward the bottom of the cake. As if this cake needed any more chocolate!

After all was said and done I took a damp paper towel and wiped the random bits of chocolate off the side of my cake stand to clean things up a little. Then I took 63 pictures of the cake to make sure I got exactly the pictures that I wanted for this tutorial because I'm a blogger, and that's what bloggers do!

This would be a super way to get rid of some of the Easter, Halloween or Christmas candy that comes through the door. This particular cake is low fat, low carb and low calorie. Enjoy a slice guilt free!

And if you'll buy that I'll (sing it with me now...) throw the Golden Gate in free.

Cup Cake Bouquet

This is another creation for the dessert auction at our church tomorrow.

I now present to you, the cup cake bouquet!

And here's how I did it:


First I made my children eat applesauce in their lunches all week and return their empty containers to me. It meant that I had to clean each of their lunch boxes everyday, but it was well worth the trouble!

Then I had my husband "man glue" the containers together. You could probably staple them together or put hole punches in them and tie them together with ribbon if you don't have strong enough glue to do the trick.

Next I put light and dark green squares of tissue paper together and poked my finger down through the middle. Then I twisted the paper together where my finger had been until I had enough squares to cover all of the holes between my applesauce cups.

Next I attached the tissue paper leaves to the cups with glue dots (they are magical little sticky things!) and put fake baby's breath stems randomly throughout. Isn't the background of this picture incredibly cute?

All of these supplies were found at my local Wal-Mart in case you are wondering. You can see two different kinds of cupcake holders, but I ended up only using the all white ones. The white and green ones were pretty in theory, but they browned a little bit in my oven and the white ones just looked better in my pot.

Here's the completed bouquet of flowers, unfrosted.

I decided to make a variety of flowers, including mums made from marshmallows. I cut mini marshmallows in half diagnally and immedietly put the sticky side down into colored sugar (1 cup of sugar in a plastic baggy with 4-10 drops of food coloring massaged throughout and left to dry on a cookie sheet).

Then I piped a random variety of floweresque frosting creations on each cupcake.

Here's a close up of the mums.

And there you have it, a cup cake bouquet!

White Chocolate Kit Kat Coconut M&M's Cake

I'm in the throws of making desserts for a dessert auction at our church tomorrow. We're raising money for a missions team (including my husband) who are going to Kenya, Africa in two months.

Here's a quick tutorial for my first completed dessert: A White Chocolate Kit Kat Coconut M&M Cake.

Don't tell anyone, but it's terribly easy! 


First, bake two round cakes in any flavor (mine were 8 inch cakes with a good old fashioned box of Betty Crocker Milk Chocolate Cake Mix).

I cut the rounded tops off of mine with a serated knife and stacked them together bottoms down with a layer of frosting in between.





Then frost them (again, I just used a plain ole can of vanilla frosting). The beautiful part about this process is that everything is going to be covered so you don't really have to be picky or careful about how the frosting looks.

Next I pressed the kit kats up against the still wet frosting. I cut the kit kats into sticks of two and placed the cut sides together so it fit together a little bit like a puzzle (instead of leaving crazy gaps from the imperfect cuts).

 I used 10 packages of regular sized kit kats. You may need another pack or two if you are using 9 inch pans.

Then I poured a big bag and a half of Coconut M&M's on top...

And tied a bow around it, somewhat tightly to reduce the gapping between the kit kats. This bow has wire in the edges.

Pretty genious and terribly simple! I've seen this done with regular kit kats and plain m&m's too, but I wanted to switch things up a little and try something just a little more elegant looking for the dessert auction tomorrow.

30 Intentional Acts of Blessing #30

Last night I was telling my husband about my new 30 Random Acts of Kindness idea in the 30 days leading up to my 30th Birthday.

As I was describing my plan to him and asking for his input I realized as soon as the words "Intentional Random Acts of Kindness" came out of my mouth that the head of the semantics department (or is it division?) at our house would soon be correcting my blunder. After all, how can something be intentionally random?

Sure enough, we got sidetracked on this statement for a while. Rob is very literal, so he takes things at face value and I tend to think that stating the general idea of something is sufficient. So, while I was mulling over this snafu while completing my first intentional random act of kindness I realized Rob was right. I am intentionally planning to bless other people. In fact, I made a list last night of possible ways to bless others in the next 30 days. It's very unlike me to think so far in advance!

So, here you go, just a day after I unveiled my new project, let me introduce you to the new and improved (and semantically correct!):

I knew I wouldn't have very much time to seek out an opportunity to bless someone today since I would be busy almost the entire day between dropping off kids, babysitting for a friend, spending 6+ hours at work and attending a Bible study with a few friends of mine later in the evening. 

Literally, the only free time I have is the time I'm spending to write this post. 

So, I decided to bless someone within the plans I already had today. While babysitting for a friend I opted to go above and beyond and clean her half bath and laundry room, clean the counters, wash the table and vacuum her floors. Vacuuming was the best part because I was able to round up all of her kids to help "Bless Mommy" by picking up the toys and things on the floor as I was going through with the vacuum. Then, when she went to pay me babysitting vouchers (I have a group of friends that swap vouchers instead of cash to make sure everyone's doing their fair share of giving and taking in the childcare department), I told her about my desire to intentionally bless people for the next 30 days and I asked her to please bless me, by letting me bless her by encouraging her keep her vouchers this time around. 

She paid me with a big smile and a hug instead. I liked that!

I've had a couple of people say that they might like to "play" along with me. Feel free to do this yourself. It would make me ecstatic to see this adventure bless people beyond what I'm able to do in my little sphere of influence. You can use some of my ideas or make up your own. Remember it doesn't always take a lot of time or a lot of money bless others, but the reward in return is amazing. If you do choose to play along please leave a comment or a link to your own blog (if you're a blogger) and let me know what you did. 

Feel free to snag this graphic or make up your own. Or go without for that matter! And remember you can start this project anytime. I happen to be doing it in the days leaning up to my 30th Birthday, but you don't need an excuse. You can do it just because... well, because it's a blessing to bless others, whether randomly or intentionally! 

30 Days Until I'm 30

I turn 30 on February 23rd. That is 30 days from tomorrow if my calculations are correct. I am in the final month of my 20's and I wouldn't mind leaving this decade of life on a high note.

I entered my 20's as a brand new bride. I was a sophomore in college and married for just over two months when I said good-bye to my teens. Since then I have gotten my degree, lived in 5 homes, driven 8 different cars, been to Disneyland 6 times, had 7 different jobs (well, kind of anyway...), and become debt free except for the house. I have had three babies. One was born in my heart, one was born of my womb and one was born into Heaven. We have opened our home to 11 foster kids and I have kept up on 2 blogs documenting these aforementioned journeys through life.

It's been a whirlwind decade. And these are just the brief highlights!

But, whether I like it or not, I'm about to say goodbye to this season of life. I have more than a few extra pounds, a rapidly increasing number of gray hairs and a new-found set of wrinkles to help me usher in my 30's. Ready or not, here they come!

My 29th year has been a rough one for me. It will be difficult for me to say goodbye to my 20's but I won't think twice about saying goodbye to 29. I am more than happy to put this year behind me.

I entered the final year of my 20's with a deep hope that we would either be, or be on our way to being, a family of 5 by the time this decade of my life came to a close. I never could have imagined when I started this year that we would indeed become a family of 5, but that we will never know our newest family member this side of Heaven.

Somewhere along the timeline of this year I went from being hopeful to conceive, to nearly obsessive about wanting another child, to grateful for the life growing inside my womb, to apprehensive about the health of the baby, to devastated at the news that our baby wasn't growing, to traumatized by the process of miscarrying this child I'd prayed so long for, to being hurt by the fact that so many important people around me didn't seem to notice or acknowledge the pain I was feeling. I know that's a terrible run on sentence, but you get the drift.

And in the process of all of this I have admittedly became very self absorbed. I am usually a giver. This year I've had nothing to give. I've been in survival mode. I have been giving all that I can muster just to get through daily life with some semblance of normalcy. I've been mentally, emotionally, spiritually and at some points even physically drained. I have stopped putting effort into non-essential areas of life, including some relationships that have hurt to let go of. However, giving to others brings joy to my heart. So I feel like being unable to muster the energy to give to others has further robbed me of my ability to have a joyful heart amidst trying circumstances.

I don't want my 30th year to be a repeat of my 29th. Don't get me wrong, I still very much want to have a baby. But I don't want my desire for something that I can't control to define my life. I know I need to get to a point where I can move forward, enjoy life and once again be a contributing member of society regardless of whether or not God chooses to bless or family with another child. Children are a blessing, not a right. I need to be emotionally present for the family that I have, not emotionally caught up in the family that I want.

Anyway, all that to say, as I turn the corner into this new decade I want to do so with a heart of gratitude. I won't cultivate a heart of gratitude looking for others to fulfill my needs and wants, or looking for someone else to change my circumstances. I will only be disappointed when it doesn't happen. Instead, if I look for opportunities to fill others needs and wants, it stands to reason that joy and gratitude will naturally follow. Right?

So, in an attempt to cultivate a grateful heart I would like to embark on an adventure to do 30 intentional random acts of kindness over the next 30 days. It's a little experiment, if you will. I don't know what effect I'm expecting to have, but I'm pretty sure it will at least be a good distraction from this self-absorbed state of being I've found myself in over this past year.

So, this is where I need your help and input. I have a couple of questions for my faithful readers.

1.) Do you have any ideas for random acts of kindness I can plan in advance? I've got the random part down, but planning isn't my strong point. I'm open to suggestions. I need 30 and I can only think of about 10 off of the top of my head. Please note, I don't have a lot of money to give toward this project, so the ideas should be free or frugal in nature.

2.) Should I blog about it? I struggle with this one because the Bible instructs us to give in such a way that our right hand doesn't know what our left hand is doing. However, I love to give, and part of what I can give to others is ideas of how to be more joyful and giving themselves. In fact, this whole scheme I've worked up this morning is inspired in part by this blogger. She's already inspired numerous people to  engage in random acts of kindness. I would love to part of that momentum, but is it possible to do in such a way as to draw attention to the acts themselves instead of the person engaging in the acts? See my dilemma?

Should my son wear Hello Kitty boots to school?

This is Titus playing in the snow last year wearing the boots in question. You can see them best in the top picture. 

It's been raining cats and dogs in our neck of the woods lately. As in, streets closed, cars being swept into creeks turned rivers kind of raining. I almost got stuck on our street yesterday picking our foster kiddo up from school, and I drive a mid-sized crossover.

The conditions of the roads seemed a little bit better this morning, at least in our neighborhood, but the rain is still furiously pelting down. I had been really hopeful that school would be cancelled today, but alas, the morning rush began despite my desire to curl up with my kids, my green fuzzy blanket and a cup of hot cocoa.

As we were getting ready we were pulling out all of the rain gear we could find. You would think that since we live in Oregon we would own a lot of rain gear, but the opposite is true. Rain doesn't scare us; we live in it daily. Only transplant Oregonians carry umbrellas with them everywhere they go! The rest of us style our hair in such a way that the rain won't disturb it our look too much, roll up our jeans so the bottoms don't get soaked and make a mad dash to our cars, recognizing that everyone else is going to look like they just got pelted with a bucket of rain as well.

But today, today was a little bit different. Today I even put on a pair of my daughter's rain boots, imagining myself having to ditch my car in the middle of some make shift river on Hill street, carrying my brood of little ones on my back in a heroic effort to escape the wild raging river that used to be a main thorough-fair. I cinched up my rain jacket, got my kids bundled up and loaded everyone into the car to get our our teenager off to school (at O'Dark Early, mind you... why does middle school start at the crack of dawn, anyway?).

In the process of this Titus was admiring the fact that Leeann and I were both wearing boots, and he said that he wanted to wear boots too. I told him that he didn't have any boots that fit him. "Yes I do," he insisted. "The Hello Kitty boots fit me."

I brushed it off, hurrying everyone into the car hoping we wouldn't be late. After we got home though, and the younger kids finished getting ready for school Titus asked me again if he could wear the Hello Kitty boots.

"No," I stated again, hoping he wouldn't ask why. I firmly believe that there is a strong difference between boys and girls and I don't like that society is suddenly calling such a distinction 'wrong'. However, I also think that things have been categorized as 'girl things' and 'boy things' that have no business being categorized as such. Like certain colors, or cartoon characters. Or perfectly comfortable boots that contain such insignia.

In our home we don't really make a bid deal about 'girl things' and 'boy things'. We have a boy and a girl and they have to play together. Therefore, they will each have to regularly play with the opposite gender's toys. We don't dole out cups and plates in gender specific colors, or stop our kids from wearing each others dress up clothes because they are choosing to pretend to be a character of another gender. Trust me, I have loads of pictures to prove this fact! However, we also don't pretend that there isn't, or shouldn't be a distinction between genders either.

I had no problem putting Leeann's too small Hello Kitty boots on Titus last year when we were prancing around in the snow together. They were practical. They fit. And we didn't have another option.

Yet suddenly, now that my son was asking to wear them to school though, I refused to let him.

Did I make the right choice?

He pressed in on me a little. "Why can't I wear them, mommy?"

By this point his ride had shown up so we didn't have long to chat but I simply told him, "I have no problem with you wearing the Hello Kitty boots. I don't think they're too girly, but some kids at school might think they are and I don't want them to tease you."

That's what I said because, well, that's the truth, and he seemed more than okay with that answer as he scurried out the door.

My son wouldn't even think to question whether or not he should wear them. They would protect his feet from the massive rain puddles, and besides, he likes the Hello Kitty t.v. show. His favorite episode is where the whole cast pretends to be the cast of Star Wars. That's totally cool in his 6 year-old Star Wars loving mind. I'm sure it never even crossed his mind that he would have been teased for wearing the pink boots.

Should I have allowed him to wear the boots and experience this reality for himself, or was I right to protect him from what I knew would come from his insensitive kindergarten peers?

I'm beginning to realize this whole parenting thing only gets more and more difficult as the years go by!

Writer's Block

Over the past several months I have started many blog posts and finished very few. I typically write about what's on my heart or my mind or something that is spurred by current happenings in my world.

That's easy to do when my attitude is good and life is generally pleasant. It's much tougher to do when I feel like I'm just barely holding it together. Not that I don't want to be real--I really do. But, I don't want to be negative and depressing. Or rather, I don't want my blog to be negative and depressing. If I'd posted the last several months worth of potential postings that really have been on my heart and mind I'm afraid I wouldn't have any readers left!

This blog was never intended to be about infertility and miscarriage, yet that's what's consumed my thought life for the last several months. Therefore, when I sit down to write other things I almost feel like I'm betraying what's truly in my heart. If I write a light-hearted post about all of the great Christmas recipes I tried and shared with others I feel like I'm polishing the outside and showing you that while trying to hide the yucky inside. So instead, I just haven't really written much of anything.

Which brings me to a question that I discussed with a couple of girlfriends last night as we delved into a new study appropriately titled, "Stuck". How much of our lives should we share publicly when we are somewhere near the depths of despair? In my situation, as a pastor's wife, I desire to be real, but I don't think it's appropriate for me to walk around airing my dirty laundry (so to speak) for anyone willing to listen.

Where's the line between being real and open and honest, and being reckless? I am open for suggestions!

Hopefully I am being more real (and appropriate) than reckless in sharing where I am currently. Most days I'm doing just fine, so please don't be concerned that I'm sitting on the couch eating bon-bons all day wallowing in my own self pitty. Though, I have indulged in a few too many sea salt chocolate caramel truffles from Costco lately, but I digress!

Though I'm fine on most days I have been surprised at how often my emotions spiral down hill at lightning pace without any notice or warning. I'm typically fairly even-keeled in my emotions so this reoccurring tail spin catches me off guard every time.  And honestly, I'm just not sure what to do with it. I try to lace up my big girl boots and march along with life as normal, but I know in my heart my emotions are unstable and something just isn't 'right'. I typically try to ignore my unstable emotions as much as possible until they even out again. That's me. My name's Robyn, I'm an emotional stuffer. The end.

I got my hands on a book about miscarriage from the library yesterday, so maybe that will help me figure out how to walk through some of what I'm feeling. I'm ready to turn over a new leaf and say good-bye to this chapter of my life along with saying good-bye and good riddance to a tumultuous 2011. One step at a time I guess.

Spiritually, let me assure you that pastor's wives walk through desserts and valleys too. And yes, I'm currently in a valley somewhere in the middle of the dessert. In comparison to what I know so many others are enduring right now I feel bad even complaining. This very short, momentary suffering in my life has shaken me far beyond what I would have expected. I have seen people walk through far more dire circumstance with loads more grace than I've been able to muster in the midst of this hurt. I have more questions for and about God than I have answers right now. He is no different now than he was four months ago before I ever found out I was pregnant and walked along the road of loosing my baby. He is no less good. He is no less holy. He is no less righteous. In my head I know that, but in my heart I still hurt. In some ways, I'm not sure I'm ready to turn that hurt over to God yet. Maybe I fear that healing = forgetting, and I don't want to forget. Maybe I'm still highly emotional and irrational and unreasonable and nonsensical and there really isn't a logical rhyme or reason to why I'm not choosing to do what I know in my heart needs to be done? Yeah, it's probably more of the latter.

With all of that being said, maybe I'll write more about miscarriage once I'm past the hurting stage and further into the healing stage? One of the things that frustrated me most about enduring the miscarriage is that it was absolutely nothing like I was expecting. The post-miscarriage healing process is also something that I'm not completely sure how to walk through, nor do I know what's "normal". I wish more people would write about it. I wish more people would talk about it. I wish infertility and baby-loss where something more people shared about because it affects so many of us, yet for the most part we all suffer silently. I want to be part of making talking about it less of a cultural taboo. But, I have a feeling my words will be more helpful to others, and spoken out of less raw, unbridled emotion if I let a little more time pass before I write more about it.

So, with that being said, I'm giving myself permission to write about other things, despite the fact that what I'm writing on any given day might not be a direct reflection of what's on my heart and mind. It might be more of a distraction than anything. I hope this post shows you that I'm not trying to polish the outside and pretend like everything's okay. I'm just not at a place where it's appropriate to publicly share yet.

I felt the need to explain my absence to my readers and to create a bridge between miscarriage and, say,  recipes. Because jumping from one to the other without explanation just doesn't feel right.

With that being said, I have several posts that have been rolling around in my head. Perhaps you could weigh in on what you'd like to read about to give me some inspiration to get past this writer's block I've been experiencing?

Here are some things that I've been mulling over:

Recipes: I've been doing a lot in the kitchen over the last several months. It helps me feel productive!

Meal Planning: This is one area of my life that is actually organized. I almost always have a plan for dinner and the ingredients on hand to make it happen.

Disneyland: Why we love it? How we afford to go as often as we do (hint, we don't have any rich relatives indulging our Disney desires, it actually takes work, planning and budgeting!)? Tips and tricks for a good Disney experience? When is the best time age to take your kids? Other ideas?

Organizing: I am no expert, but I know what it's like to struggle in this area. I have recently found a little bit of success here though.

Finding my inner athlete: Have you seen her?  I know she's in there somewhere, I'm just having a hard time finding her!

Education: Why we school our kids the way we do and why we reserve the right to change our mind at any given moment in time. FYI: I don't love any of my schooling options, so I'm liable to offend just about everyone with this post.

Job Charts and Daily Routines: A glimpse into what works for us as we try to teach our kids about responsibility and money.

Budgeting/Money: How we plan for Christmas in such a way that we don't stress about purchasing gifts when December rolls around? How we do our household budget (it's taken a lot of work, but it's at a point where it's completely on auto-pilot. We don't stress about money because we have a plan for every dollar before it ever enters our home)? Why we are an anti-debt family? Other money/budget related topics?

Foster Parenting: We have enough experience behind us now that I'd be happy to start sharing some insights we've learned if there's any interest in reading about it.

An extension of what's already on the blog: Smoothies, Hairstyles, Love Story Updates.

Other ideas? I'm totally open to suggestions and I'd love some input as to what you'd enjoy reading about.