Retro Birthday topped with Red Velvet

Rachel's birthday was this past Sunday and she turned 29 + 2! As I was putting the finishing touches on the wedding cake for Daniel's paralegal last week, "ding, dong!". It was Rachel's mom at my door waiting to ask me if I'd bake Rachel's birthday cake. I was honored to do such. Mrs. Deborah said to do something funky with almond flavoring. So, I baked a white almond cake (round bottom, square top, with a cupcake topper) and iced it with almond flavored lime green icing. I decorated each layer with what I like to call 'retro circles'. The circles were made out of homemade fondant. I topped the entire cake with a BIG cupcake and retro flowers on top of it. Rachel said it was tasty!Also, way back in April or May, my good friend, Cindy, asked me to bake a bridal shower cake for a shower she was hosting in June. Of course, I agreed. After much discussion on flavors, we decided on a red velvet cake with cream cheese icing and cover the cake with homemade fondant. I decorated each tier of the cake with different "swirlies" and put the bride's monogram on the top tier. I also included fresh cut flowers to add more umph! I had a bite of this one...

Mmmm... good!

I've always enjoyed my mom's caramel cake simply because she makes the icing from scratch! No, seriously. She does just put a little sugar and other stuff in her black skillet and scratch it around for a LONG while and voila'! Caramel icing that is so yummy it makes you want to slap yo mama! I never really slapped my moma, but I sure did gobble up that cake. My moma's the best at cooking and I've learned everything I know from her and well...just throwing stuff together. Yesterday, I was making a dear friend a cake and had some extra batter left over and you can't throw out the extra batter. It has to be eaten. So, I pulled out my BIG cupcake pan and made three big cupcakes. As the cupcakes were smelling up my house, I tried a "different" kind of icing than what I normally top the cupcakes with. I pulled out a small sauce pan, a can of sweetened condensed milk, brown sugar, and half a stick of margarine. I just wanted to see if it would work. It's for sure not as tasty as what Moma does, but pretty dang close. Voila'!

Poppie

I have lots of men in my life who are very special to me; my sweet husband, papaw, Dad(Daniel's dad). These men have influenced my life in so many ways, but none can hold a candle to my poppie! You see, this is my daddy and besides him teaching me everything I know about cars or anything else mechanical/electrical, he's taught me a good deal about kindness, patience, and strength. He's also taught me about how to make all three of those attributes work together. I think he is the smartest man in the world. Four years ago, he had knee surgery due to a work related injury. He had hoped this surgery would 'fix' the problem and make the pain in his knee go away. Well, four surgeries later, we hope the problem is fixed. I write all of this to say that even as I waited today with Moma for him to be brought up to recovery, during recovery, and even when he "hoisted" himself in the truck to go home, he displayed such strength! This man will give you the shirt off his back and every dollar bill in his pocket just because that's who he is. That's how he treats others, and that's how he shows he cares. He can be pretty goofy at times too, and always wears his best smile! Guess what, Poppie? I love you!!!!

A Dead Snake is the only Good Snake...

That's what I always say! I am deathly afraid of snakes and we've already seen two in the past month! One was a chicken snake that showed up next to our garage dooor after we'd cut down a dead tree. We saw it after returning from a nice and relaxing dinner. Daniel and my dad took care of it since the fire was still hot from our work with the tree all day. The other one decided to show his face as I was stooped over in my flowerbeds today. With one hand I was holding up my lantana plants, and with the other hand I was spraying the weeds when this snake nearly slithered over my hand. Those of you who know me know that I dropped everything and ran squealing to the neighbor's yard. Our neighbors are just as scared of snakes as I am. So, we just stood there while our other neighbor looked for the snake in my flowerbed. She poked around amongst my elephant ears and daylilies until we hear, "There you are! Come on out here." I'm thinking at this point if this lady is really talking to this snake!!! Well, then she blinked! The snake got away and ran to the corner of our back patio as she cooed over it. Finally, she killed it with several chops of a gardening hoe. I guess from now on I'll have to have the kaiser blade close by when I'm on the patio drinking my coffee and reading my book. Gracious me!

busy weekend in Memphis/Olive Branch

Four years ago, I needed someone to be my right hand gal. Someone to tell people where to go, kind of order them around so our wedding would run smoothly. Who better to play that part than my best friend Lindsey. She told ushers when to begin seating wedding guests. She told the wedding party when it was their turn to walk down the aisle. She even cut the cake at the reception!!! What can I say? She's the best!!! So, Lindsey and I were talking months ago (We do talk more often that months apart.) about her sister's wedding and the things to be done and that were already done. We were getting excited for her sister, Megan, when Lindsey said that I should be there and do "her job" from my wedding since Megan and Lindsey's moma was a little worried about making sure the bathrooms had enough TP in them. Ha!!! I agreed because I knew it would be a chance to get to see Blake and Lindsey again as well as their cute son, Gus. Daniel and I arrived Saturday afternoon ready to work. Daniel and Blake strung floating candles on fishing line in the pool while Lindsey and I went over all my "duties" and cleaned up the downstairs rooms that guests could be entering soon! Then time came to get ourselves cleaned up and dressed for the wedding. Rush, rush, rush!!! I quickly ran a brush through my hair and a washcloth over my neck and arms, threw on my wedding attire, and began ordering people around. Now, certain people knew I was there to do that job and were very thankful because they could not; others were not so thrilled with the idea of me asking politely if they would go ahead and get seated because the wedding is going to start in FIVE MINUTES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everyone was seated right on time, even though I thought they wouldn't be, and we began sending out the wedding party. Now, keep in mind that even though this wedding was beautiful, it was also a June wedding OUTSIDE. So, it was HOT!!! Blake told us later that we had been under a heat advisory.

As soon as the ceremony was finished, more family pictures were taken and we got the party started. Megan had the cutest 3D glasses that made you see hearts when you looked at lights. Pretty cool!!!

We sent the newlyweds off in style with our sparklers in hand.

After they were gone, we shut the music down and began the clean up process so we could all chillax in the pool with the leftover wine. So much fun this whirlwind weekend was! Now, Lindsey and I are planning our girls trip in August! Nashville here we come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Date night

At least one night a month Daniel and I try to have a date night. Each month is different. For example, in December we go get hot chocolate and ride around to find the best Christmas lights. In March, we take a drive down the Natchez Trace and have a picnic on the way home. Daniel is in charge of planning February and June due to Valentine's Day and our anniversary. The other months are usually "fly by the seat of our pants" kinds of dates, which are the most fun anyway. October we always have a date night just before Halloween where I pick up a couple of pumpkins on the way home, Daniel picks up dinner on his way home and we carve the night away. Sometimes we race to see who can carve faster or we sometimes take our time to see who can handle the most detail. This year we took our time and clearly Daniel is the one who can handle the most detail. Check out our jack-o-lanterns!

graduation fun...

baby shower/christening cakes

Dum, dum, da dum...

Wedding cakes and groom's cakes!

kid's birthdays

These are kid's birthday cakes I did for friends of mine or friends of friends.

Gus Hill

This is the baby shower cake I made for my best friend in St. Louis. Lindsey and I met when we lived in Oxford for three years. We walked together every night while our husbands studied for law school exams. She is the best ever. There are no words to describe our friendship and I am just so thankful to have her in my life. Ok about Gus...This past December Daniel and I traveled to St. Louis to throw Blake and Lindsey a couples baby shower. This is the cake she asked me to do. So, ta da!!!

The way to any man's heart...

...is through his stomach. Here's Daniel's favorite birthday treat. German chocolate cake. Although I haven't totally mastered the rum part of it, I think he still enjoyed it.

Dear friends and their special day!

These are a few of my friend's birthday cakes. Here we've got coconut lime cake, chocolate cake with buttercream icing, white almond cake with almond buttercream icing, and red velvet with cream cheese icing. I'll be adding another one soon!!!

Goin' to the Chapel and...

Here is a bridal shower and bachelorette cake.

Go State! Hotty Toddy! and Halloween always go together, right?

The next few cakes on this post are, of course, related to MS State and Ole Miss football as well as Halloween themed cakes. Colonel Reb all alone was a time when I decided to practice making my own fondant(so it would be tastier than rubber). I also wanted to dive into making something a little more detailed.

Bully is for a dear friend's son on his birthday! I just adore Cindy and her family! I don't know if I love them so much because they are Bulldog fans or because they are such good people. But, then again, being a Bulldog fan makes you a good person.

This is what I call a "brothers divided" cake. I did this one for a sweet student of mine who always LOVED giving me a hard time about being a State fan. Anytime I'd wear anything maroon or white or anything having to do with MS State, he'd say, "Mrs. Culpepper, your shirt, earrings, etc. are so ugly." simply because it was MS State related. When I baked this cake for him, I told him I spit on the Rebel side and I hoped he'd enjoy. :) He and his family are precious and I sure am going to miss him next year!!!

Now, for some "boo" tactics even though these aren't scarey at all.

Three's company

So, I have this dear friend who has three sweet little ones. Well, they are not so little now, but they are still sweet. When they were first born, I wanted to take something sweet to get her through each day. You know, give her energy? What should I take? A cake, of course!

bugs, bugs, everywhere there are bugs!

These cupcakes are in the shape of various insects. They were very tedious, but a whole lot of fun all at the same time. The theme for the birthday party was a "bug catching" party. So much fun!!!

Happy Birthday to You....

At Daniel's office each month, all of the birthdays for that month are celebrated in the conference room with one big lunch and cake. Usually someone from the office makes the cake, but on this rare occasion I was asked to make the cake. Yippee!!! This was one of my first cakes to make/decorate. It was just a vanilla cake with buttercream icing. I do everything from scratch unless I'm in a hurry or have lots of cakes to bake in a short amount of time. Then I cheat and use a box, but even then I've been told the cakes taste delicious.

Bless the Hands...

So, I've always been a praying woman, but when I met Daniel I quickly picked up on the sweet saying "Bless the hands that prepared it" during every blessing before any meal. I asked him why he and his family always said that and he said that it was just an appreciation for the one who took the time out to prepare the meal for them. He has carried this over to our family and I thought it was a cool name for my hobby. So, bless the hands...

Playing in the dirt...

Well, it's about time I posted new happenings around the Culpepper house. I've decided to dedicate this blog to things I love to do. Right now, it's cooking and gardening. I'll start outside and move inside with other fun blog updates. Last summer I decided I was tired of looking at a "neked" back yard since I spend most of my time with my caboose parked on the patio with coffee and book in hand. So, I told Daniel I was going to till up a border around the back of our house and patio about two feet wide. He was not impressed because this meant I would be destroying any "good" grass we had begun to establish in our two years of being here. After much sweet talking and cooking many of his favorite meals, I now have a beautiful flowerbed that wraps from my garage all the way around to the corner of my patio, and I did all by myself! Even Noel likes to look at the flowers. Check out the photo of her chillaxin on what she thinks is HER bench.