John 12:27

While reading John 12 this morning I was struck by verse 27. After Palm Sunday, Jesus was hanging out with His disciples talking about His coming death. John 12:27 gives us some raw insight into what was going on in the mind of Jesus:

"Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, 'Father, save me from this hour'? But this is the very reason I came! Father; bring glory to your name."


You see, Jesus knew why He came to this earth. He knew His purpose, and that was to suffer the most gruesome and humiliating death in history in order to conquer not only death, but to clear a path for sinners to have a relationship with God; by taking the sins of the world and allowing God to place them on His shoulders. Whew! What a purpose! What a marvelous, risky and sacrificial purpose!

You see, Jesus was "deeply troubled". He knew that He was going to be betrayed, humiliated, flogged, nailed to a cross, and murdered. I wonder if it wasn't so much that He knew He was going to go through all of this pain and torture, but more that people would still refuse to believe Him.

Seeing Jesus's response to His inner turmoil gives me perspective on how I need to live my life. After sharing His struggles, He says, "Father; bring glory to Your Name." What an attitude to imitate when I'm going through my day-to-day hardships and struggles! May my attitude be like Christ. When I struggle or am going through hardships, may my thoughts be, "Father; bring glory to Your Name." When I'm hurt or angry, may my cry be, "Father; bring glory to Your Name." When I'm happy and when things seem to be going my way, may my heart sing and rejoice, "Father; bring glory to Your Name!"

"Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, 'Father, save me from this hour'? But this is the very reason I came! Father; bring glory to your name." John 12:27

Belle Barbie Cake

For my daughter's 6th birthday she wanted a Belle Barbie cake. My mom let me borrow her princess cake mold so I went ahead and prepared the dress following the directions on the box. Once the cake was cooled, I froze the cake.

Next, I found a picture of Belle online so I could see what her dress actually looked like. I used the Wilton white frosting and colored it with lemon yellow Wilton coloring and frosted the whole dress with a spatula.

I then took the lemon yellow frosting and used my Wilton tip #103 to loop the frosting around the dress. After 3 layers, I added a pink loop using Wilton tip #102. Once I got to the top, I added the Barbie head. I made the bow pink to add some more color to Belle.

Here was the end result:

A Bumble Bee Cake

I made a bumble bee cake for my daughter's 1st birthday. After looking around on the internet for ideas, This is what I came up with:

I found a Wilton butterfly cake mold and made the cake using a vanilla cake mix. Next, I took packaged sugar cookie dough and made cookies for the face and for the feet. I took a heart shaped cookie mold and cut the cookie with it. Then, I cut the heart in half creating the feet then I baked the cookies.

After I froze the cake overnight, I colored the Wilton frosting with golden yellow, black, blue, and green. Next, I used a spatula to frost the sides of the cake blue and the top of the cake with just the plain white Wilton frosting. I placed one sugar cookie on the upper side of the cake to make the face and then frosted it with the golden yellow frosting.

Next, I added the layers of black and golden yellow. For the feet, I broke a sugar cookie in half, trying to create feet and frosted them black. For the antennae, I took 2 marshmallows, colored the tops black, then attached them to the cake with 2 birthday candles.

Finally, I took the green frosting and outlined the bottom of the cake to give it a more finished look.


As for the bumble bee sugar molds, I found them at a local cake store. 

A Pokemon Tyranitar Cake

My son LOVES Pokemon. So, for his 7th birthday he wanted a Tyranitar Pokemon cake.

I began with two round vanilla cakes. I spread chocolate frosting in between the two cakes to make them stick, froze the cake, then I frosted both cakes with the Wilton white frosting.

Next, I took a picture of Tyranitar, printed it off the computer, and then placed it on top of the cake. I took pins and poked holes all around the picture so that I could trace it with frosting. This part was tricky, because once I lifted the sheet of paper, it looked like the attack of the holes had invaded the top of the cake. After making out the main lines of Tyranitar, I finally got an idea of what the dinosaur would look like once it was finished.

Next, I mixed the frosting colors I wanted using the Wilton frosting colors. I used the same tip for all of the colors. Looking back, I wish I had used different tips, but overall, I was happy with the end result.

A Sponge Bob Cake

My daughter is a huge Sponge Bob fan. So, for her 2nd birthday, I chose to do a Sponge Bob cake.

I made one vanilla sheet cake (9x11) and sprayed the glass pan extra well so I would be able to get the cake out. I began the frosting by frosting the whole cake with white Wilton frosting. Next, I found a picture of Sponge Bob I could copy. I mixed the frosting colors first and then made the outline of Sponge Bob's body in black.

I picked my own frosting tips and experimented on the different colors. Here is how it turned out:

Monkey Head Cake

After talking to my husband, I thought it might be fun to post pictures of the cakes I've made for the kids to give people ideas of things they can do for cakes. I'm always looking around for new ideas, so I'm sure there are other moms out there who probably find themselves in the same boat. So, here we go.

This first cake I made back in January for our son's first birthday. I looked around online, and found this idea of a monkey head. I made four round white cakes. I put one on top of the other to make the head. In the middle I put chocolate frosting...mostly because I love chocolate and my 1-year-old is still too young to choose his cake :).

Then, I put the other two cakes on top of each other with chocolate frosting in the middle, and cut out the ears.  I used what was left of the cake to make the baby's smash cake. Thankfully frosting is incredibly forgiving, because I sure didn't think the cake looked like much when I first started. Lastly, I froze the cake to make it easier to frost later.

I began with the banana cake. I figured it would be the easiest. So, I used the white Wilton frosting and colored it lemon yellow. I spread it over the whole banana with a spatula. Next, I used the chocolate Wilton flavored frosting and dotted both sides of the banana to finish it off.

After the banana was done, I set it aside and began with the monkey head. I took some white Wilton frosting and used the Wilton copper coloring to make the skin tone. I spread it with a spatula on the areas that I wanted to have flesh on the monkey.

Finally, I took the chocolate Wilton flavored frosting and made the hair with the Wilton tip #233.

Lastly, I wrote our son's name and "Happy Birthday" with one of the fine tipped Wilton tips using the same chocolate flavored Wilton frosting.

Poo

Things are never what you'd expect when it comes to parenting. I learned very quickly that the best way to go about being a parent is to have no expectations whatsoever...and if you're the type of person who cannot live life without expectations, then make them as low as you can.

I have found this to be all the more true as I have attempted to potty train my third child many different times this last year. I was told by a few other moms that for them, their third child was the easiest child to potty train. Part of it seemed like it was because they had older siblings they wanted to be like and the other part was partly because the older siblings were the ones to potty train them. This got me excited. I'd had a fairly easy time potty training my older two, so knowing that number three would be a breeze, I was all for that!

Right after our daughter turned 2 she was completely potty trained for about 2 weeks. By completely potty trained, I mean that she was wearing panties all day and pooing and peeing in the potty. After about 2 weeks, she decided she was too busy to go in the potty, so after going through too many panties to count, instead of fighting the issue we went back to full-time diapers. I knew she was still pretty young, so I gave up. It probably was not the best thing for me to do, but I knew we were going to be moving across the country pretty soon, so I didn't want to have to be fighting the issue during that time. After we moved I decided to try again. She was and has been completely potty trained with the peeing part since, but because she refuses to poo in the potty, I have resorted to diapers again. I would rather clean a poopie diaper'd butt than a poopie pantie'd butt.

All of my expectations of having my third child easily potty trained have been completely bashed to pieces. I'm going to wait until she forces the issue. As for now, I have more poo stories than I care to share.

Happy Thoughts

My 7-year-old was having a major attitude problem yesterday. Seriously, I thought attitudes didn't start until the teenage years, boy was I WRONG! We're sitting in the car and he's moping in the back with a big huge frown on his face and his arms crossed around his chest. So, what does mom do in this situation? Normally I would just ignore him and wait for him to come around. Yesterday I'd had it. I look back at him and say, "Peyton, I want you to tell me 5 things you're thankful for." The puzzled look on his face was priceless, I'm pretty sure I caught him completely off-guard. After a moment, he mumbles, "no." So, then I say, "Well, then you can't leave the car until I've heard 5 things you're thankful for." 


Eventually I got to hear the 5 things he was thankful for. They were simple, but it worked. After, I said I wanted to see his big wonderful smile then I gave him one of my goofy smiles. It was SO funny watching him try not to laugh. Then he was back to his normal fun-loving wonderful self.


You see, I've found it's hard to feel sorry for myself when I start making lists of things I'm thankful for. It's hard to be mad at someone when I'm not focused on the ways I feel someone has wronged me. Focusing my thoughts on things I'm thankful for rather than the negative things going on around me, is a practice I want to continue as I grow in my relationship with Christ.


"And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise." Philippians 4:8

Being Jesus

How different would this world be if Christian brothers and sisters would just get along?
How different would life be if we would just set aside our pride for a moment and look each other in the eyes and say, "I forgive you."

Pride has snaked its way into our lives
Pride's fangs have sunk deep into our souls

Oh God forgive us!

We are supposed to be the light to the world
We are supposed to be the salt of the earth
How is that possible if our lives are no different than anyone else?

How different would this world be if Christians would lay down their pride
And truly be like Christ?

Humble and forgiving
Laying our lives down for each other
Loving servants
Being Jesus in this very dark world.