All things family-related. My husband and me, the children we made, the grandbebes that thrill us now. Our whole great big, loud, messy family. Love! *sigh…
The first grandson, my “little man.” The Gavinators. He has had to endure much of this through his years.
Then: Easter 2007, he was ready to run and play with the sisters and cousin Hunter. But, wait! First, a kiss-kiss!
Now: Easter break 2013, hanging with the grands. This again?!? yes, this again.
Gavin was the very very very FIRST grandchild. He changed my world! He’ll be double-digits soon, but he will not escapes his Nonni’s kisses as long as she can catch him! ;)
Note to self: In retrospect, the bangs of 2007 really were a grave error, as almost all decisions made at midnight are.
The Coconut Cake (actual, shredded coconut is optional, strangely enough). It is about the cake, people!
#1 Cake:
1 white cake mix (Duncan Hines is the better choice, always), mixed according to boxed instructions with 1 teaspoon coconut extract added
#2 Creamy coconut mixture for slathering:
1 can Eagle Brand sweetened, condensed milk
1 can Senor Lopez’s Coconut Creme (15 oz.), or any coconut cream found near the drink-mixing (pina colada) supplies
#3 Optional topping (but treat yourself and add it):
Toasted shredded coconut sprinkled on top for people who really love their coconut (which leaves out most of my family, tsk).
#4 Rich, delicious icing
See below! You’ll be so glad!
Here’s how
Bake the cake in a 9 x 13″ pan according to directions (don’t forget to add that teaspoon of coconut extract to the mix). While it is baking, stir together the Eagle Brand Milk and the Coconut Creme.
While the cake is still warm from the oven, poke {lots of} holes in it with a butter knife or potato peeler and pour/slather the mixture over the cake to saturate. Keep back a couple of tablespoons of the mixture to use in the icing (I just don’t scrape the bowl and it gives me enough for my needs).
Let the cake cool completely. Then use 1 batch of any cream cheese icing recipe with that little milk-creme mixture you reserved and spread over the cake (use the same bowl for the icing, for heaven’s sake).
Gavin liked it! :)
But wait – there’s MORE! Don’t you want the MOST AMAZING Cream Cheese Icing Recipe EVER, too???
Ok, then I will share it, as well. I got it off Pinterest. It is so ridiculously simple and easy you won’t believe it. It’s called Marshmallow-Cream Cheese Icing.
1 8 oz. block of cream cheese (give it a chance to come close to room temp, as the cake bakes)
1 (7 oz.) jar of marshmallow cream
1 tsp of vanilla. Or, as I did in this case, 1 teaspoon of, you guessed it – coconut extract!!!
That’s it! Three ingredients. It is luscious, delightful, creamy, airy, light and delish! It is not too sweet and whips up in 2 minutes flat. SO fast, so perfect!
Now, I also “toasted” about a cup of coconut and sliced almonds in a pat of {real} butter on the stovetop and anyone who wished could sprinkle it atop at serving time. If you want, though, you may just generously sprinkle the cake top with soft coconut from the bag. But my son Rocky liked the crunchiness over the uber-creamy, soft cake. True – it was wonderful.
Pop the iced cake in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. Mmmmmmm. I don’t even really like cake. But I love this…it was breakfast!
Quick re-cap
Thank-you, Heather, for sharing your wonderful recipe. And Stef – I plan to make one for you to celebrate Wryder’s arrival! xxoo
There is a coconut cake* in the oven and the doors and windows are open wide to let the spring air flow freely. I hear something (?) in the neighborhood – is some one mowing already?
The washer and dryer are at their rumbly-sounds work and my dining room table is lined with colorful Easter bags, each designated for one amazing grandbebe or another, as I busily prepare for THE day, the day more important than all the rest of the days ever – the one celebrating what Jesus did. Easter. Resurrection – the complete and finished work. New life, the new birth, the fulfillment of all longing. I can’t help humming, singing, contemplating
Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow
And we are rejoicing for we have a Savior and we are also waiting, longing for the new little bebe who will join us soon. Jovan and Rocky were “due” on Friday and so, as every woman who has ever gone past her due date will attest, the longing increases to almost unbearable heights for birth, for what has been carried, to see the baby who has been hidden, being knitted by the very hands of God, right here, right now in our arms, in our sights, please, Lord! From womb to waiting arms. From darkness to light. From will-this-ever-happen to the miraculous she is here! From waning, worn-out hope to bright-light joy!
Mommy and daddy are ready! Mommy is really really ready, doing the hardest of the work. :)
All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. Romans 8.22-25
We are enlarged in the waiting! Oh, my goodness, our expectancy is JOYFUL!
So we are remembering Jesus, all He did, what His suffering and death on the cross gave us – while we were still actually sinners {don’t give up on this evil world, my friends and family – what Jesus did was enough and is enough for even these troubled days, for all men, for all times}. Jesus is all.
And we are looking ahead with joyful expectancy for this new little girl, Baby-Girl Rhoades and we are blessed, so blessed.
So pray for Jovan if you think about it. Pray for that promised strength to deliver (Isaiah 66) and Have a blessed Easter.
Jesus died. But He conquered death and rose. And His blood washes white and His wounds brought us healing and what He has done means everything. So be blessed on Easter!
I hear the Savior say, “Thy strength indeed is small; Child of weakness, watch and pray, Find in Me thine all in all.
Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow”
Soon!
*About the coconut cake…Pure decadence. I have been delivered of the very luscious, yet too-many-steps-from-scratch recipe I used to make to Heather’s delightful use-a-mix-and-you’ll-never-go-back-deliciousness. It is a wonderful cake. Maybe I will share the recipe with you! Soon.
Happy Birthday, Belle-Baby, our little chin-dimpled Amelie-girl with the curly locks and impish smile! You are 3 today!
Teeny-tiny little girl ~ you are bringing more joy each day you live. You are sweet and funny and ornery and fast! You are cunning and charming, too smart for your tiny britches, and can get into uproar faster than any of us can shake a stick, but o-my-goodness, when you pause to show your love, the earth melts away for the hugeness of it.
Until Baby Malakai came along, you were the family baby for such a long time. And so-tiny you remained, it has been easy to forget how quickly you are growing up. But when Kai-Kai came along, you became, overnight, a big girl, the sweet cousin to *kiss-kiss baby’s head and bring diapers and whisper sweet nothings to him. Just think what a wonderful big sister you are about to be.
Amelie Belle ~ When I think of you, I think about how fast you are, how decided you are, how well you share your feelings and opinions in spite of being such a tiny thing, what a leader you are and how much you love singing {just like your Nonna did at your age!} and I also think about how long and sweet and intense your hugs are.
I will never forget when you came to kiss me goodbye the other night and you, without any coaxing from your momma or daddy said, “Thank-you for my cake, Nonna” in your ever-so-slightly sandy-voice, and you hugged me so tight and I never wanted to let go and if I hadn’t, I think you would have stayed. It is what I love most about you – you are full-in, dedicated, committed and wholehearted in every single thing you do, including your love and affection. I can’t always catch you, but when I can, it is wondrous. I LOVE that about you!
THREE wishes for my Amelie on her 3rd Birthday:
1// That the song of the Lord will grow in your heart and you’ll sing with angel-choirs when no one else knows and it will cause you to ever and always want to press in and worship the Lord and pursue His Presence.
2// I wish for your hugs to bring healing and peace to people whose hearts are broken. I am hoping for your lovely love to bless people and give them strength when they need it so. Just like it has for me.
3// MIddle-child wonderfulness: may you have it in abundance. You are the filling in the sugar-and-spice sandwich now, and I know you are spicy and delicious enough to be seen! You be a wonderful little sister and a splendid big sister and you will bless your mommy and daddy and please God, too. OK?
I love you, Belle-Baby, my big-girl, now. Nonna loves you and all your color and texture and wild beauty! I love you! xxxooo
Dave & Tara came up with an explanation for things going in a really different route than they had planned for and it is that they were Kai-boshed.
ki·bosh /ki-bäSH/
Noun Put an end to; dispose of decisively.
Which is hilarious because it is about baby Kai having shown up 5 weeks and 6 days early and how it turned life completely upside down and sort of overrode all the well-laid plans any of us had. Christmas was barely packed away when the little fella was dropped into our very happy, waiting arms.
So all of those projects we began the new year with – Dave and Tara were about to head to Florida: Kai-boshed. Tara was going to help me remodel the grandbebe playroom: Kai-boshed. The list goes on.
Kai on 3.13.13
How lucky are we anyway? :)
Tara called this photo Business Casual. One of her friends called him the CEO of Adorable, which is very true. That baby is calling the shots!
Twenty-nine reasons I am glad Ryan was born (29 years ago yesterday).
The list could go on, but suffice it to say, we love you, Ryan Faaland. We can scarcely recall a life before you, so well-fitted you have become to us. You were a dream, a longing in Dessa’s heart and I am pretty sure you fulfilled her wish list except that you were even more wildly handsome and athletic than she was expecting and I love that that fact sort of upset her {very ordered} fruit basket. God sees even the deep-secret lists we make, Dessa. :)
So, while God created you for her, He knew you’d be getting us all and He fashioned you to be a man we’d all fall for. So – here is the short list, twenty-nine reasons I am glad you were born, or 29 things I love about you and there is one for each of your years so far…
29. Because *poof! Two years ago this very week you appeared in Tredessa’s world and all sorts of lights in her turned on high, energy-sucking, power-zapping, beaming-brightly radiance and it was good to see something besides work and ministry get her blood rushing. :)
28. And then *boom! Eight months later you bravely married her and became one of us officially. That takes courage, my boy. And you are brave.
27. And you are brave-hearted. You are really living a life of your own courageous choices. People might have seen the oldest of 4 blond-headed brothers bounding down the Florida beaches, boyishly tormenting his brothers, or jumping to hit an overhead sign and thought, “Oh boy, there goes trouble.” But they’d have been so wrong, so-so-so wrong. They might have missed the lion-hearted young man who’d answer the call of his Father, etched into his being before he was born. And they might not have understood all it would mean to answer that call, to pursue that depth of righteousness. You are brave-hearted.
26. You are humble. I like that when you feel you aren’t an obvious choice to be entrusted with a “position” or God-type-appointment, you humbly receive it, thankful for the opportunity to serve in the Kingdom, and do it with your whole heart.
So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. 1 Peter 5.6 NLT
25. You are whole-hearted and I think everyone knows how much I value this trait in life. Being wholehearted is so well portrayed through the life of Hezekiah who so threw himself into obedience and pleasing the Lord, God was pleased to grant him great success
Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before or after his time. He remained faithful to the Lord in everything, and he carefully obeyed all the commands the Lord had given Moses. So the Lord was with him, and Hezekiah was successful in everything he did. 2 Kings 18.5-7a NLT
24. I love that you love Tredessa. You have no idea what proof this is of your emotional and intellectual intelligence. She is a world-changing tiger and we knew the man who had the confidence to marry her was going to be strong in spirit, ferocious in heart and the smartest man alive. So, there you go!
23. I love that you unsettle Tredessa a little, too. Because that girl can handle anything to the moon and back and really should become our first woman president, for goodness’s sake, but you have a way of de-fusing her in just small, sweet ways that keeps her on her toes and she loves the mystery of that. No matter what she tells you! Keep it up, Ryan!
Last year’s birthday “card” for Ryan…holds true!
22. So glad you were born because of my first-ever memory of you. I was in the front of a hotel meeting room speaking at a press conference. It was nerve-wracking, but this whole line-up of you twenty-something guys had come in to pray us through it. And even though now I know many of the other guys, you were the one who stood out to me, because the sun was shining through the window and hitting your blond head in halo-like radiance and you stood there are muscly- and strong with your arms folded decidedly across your chest and I could have sworn the leader of the angel-armies had swooped in with his troops and it brought such peace and I knew I was safe.
21. And I love that your first memory of me wasn’t even at that press conference (I suppose because you were praying), but a few months later at Heaven Fest where you claim I almost ran over over you with a golf cart, but that I smiled and was so apologetic. And you thought I was nice. Or crazed. One of those, which was it?
20. And I am glad that you finally let me know that I wasn’t even the one driving, but that I was still apologetic and concerned. Thanks for knowing I wasn’t trying to kill you or take my rights on the road. I really appreciate that.
19. The fact that you are pretty ornery actually does make me thankful for you and glad you were born. As long as you are being ornery with some one else. Not me!
18. After almost every family dinner, you just head into the kitchen and make us all coffee. You are a prince among men.
17. Right away, you loved my grandbebes. You became their uncle. You look for ways to know them and relate to them and speak into their lives. You treat them respectfully and with care. PLUS they just think you are so much fun!
16. I am glad you were born because you make us healthier. Your fresh-fruit love has changed every family dinner since you came along. I never want you to miss Florida so much you’ll leave here, so I promise to keep the pineapple coming. And the strawberries. And the kiwi and mangoes and oranges. And whatever else it takes.
15. You not only speak well of everyone, you actually think well of them, too. And that is a rare gift and I am thankful to be on the receiving end of that, mother-in-law or not.
14. You are such a good big brother in the fam, now, too. Especially with Stormie and the shepherd. Your watchful care and protectiveness about Stormie’s life (even to taking care of her giant dog so she can have one) is so sweet. You (like Tristan and DP before you) have set such a high bar on the quality of man who dares enter her life, that this momma’s heart is satisfied it will go well with her. You have added to this family in love and in care.
13. My love affair with salt notwithstanding, you like my cooking. I like that you like my cooking and always let me know.
12. I like that you want me to teach you certain dishes or things I do in the kitchen. How flattering! :)
11. I praise God for your life because it is full of life and hope and promise and you dream dreams that you want to fulfill because you want to bring Him glory and I am excited I will get to see these things happen.
10. You are so in tune to spiritual things and discernment and righteousness. I love that you never try to generate that but you don’t dismiss it, either. You can read things that are right on or “off” in the spiritual realm. So wise.
9. And you call it like you see it. I have never seen harshness nor judgementalness in you about it, but you are bold to say what you see, no pretense. You’re direct.
8. I love seeing you laugh with everything you have and your eyes squinting up when you throw your head back in complete joy. You’re such a joyful person.
7. You are such a worshiper. I love how you love musical worship and just flat-out worship your life out before the Lord.
6. I love that when I find some amazing worship, soaking-in-the-Presence music and want to share it with you, it turns out you already know it and had told me about it. You are amassing quite a collection.
5. I peeked into your workout room and saw prayer books beside the weights (even though you also have a prayer room!). You’re a Nehemiah – a man of prayer and a man of action.
4. You honor us. I know when I walk into a room and see you, I have an ally. And please always remember, you do, too.
3. In your young-heart-in-the-Lord, you are such an example of the believer, for the believers. You just love Jesus completely and all the way.
2. I am thankful for your life because you have seen the worst of mine and you have pressed in anyway.
And finally
1. I know you pray for me. And I know you have prayed for me when no one saw or knew the depth of the need for it. And I know you jumped in headlong and called out my name to the Father when if you had not…?…and He heard you and He is answering.
Thank-you, Ryan for being not only a son-in-law, but family-in Christ and one in heart. Thank-you for being family-in-Rhoades, too, however messy that is sometimes and for protecting and championing the unity of this big, crazy group of us. You were born to be one of us and there a million reasons I am glad for that. But these are the 29 I share on the occasion of your 29th birthday.
Oh, happy day. I am sure if my first five kids (Tara, Stephie, Dessa, Rocky and Stormie) had been doing this, we’d have sent them right outside. Haha. But these? The first 5 of my 7 (almost 8) grands? A totally different story.
Poor Amelie Belle wasn’t feeling quite up to joining to party. And Malakai stopped by just to say hello. But the first five have sufficient personality to fill the house, nonetheless.
Poppa’s 1960s electronic football, the hair train (the grand-girls lining up to fix each other’s hair, then trading around), then the hair train including the boys (they love getting their hair fixed, although I am probably not supposed to say it). Lunch was flurry of soups, macaroni & cheese, with oyster crackers and french-fried onions for crunch, and juicy pink grapefruit. Cookies for everybody! Drawing class with poppa, dance party to Hunter’s Capital Kings CD, running and jumping through the house, playing with Sandy-the-Dog, painting the antique door window panes with temperas (they’ll wash right off when I am ready, but right now, I shall keep the masterpiece as a memory). Afternoon popcorn and their traditional viewing of a couple of Gilligan’s Island episodes (much to my chagrin), more hair train time, Nonna taking head-shots for updated silhouettes, running around out in the yard like banshees for a while, playing dress up, more popcorn, hey-let’s break out the giant coloring books…this is a good few hours (a “free day” Gavin called it) with the amazing grand-girls and boys! Love them.
Me: Guini, remember when you used to do pre-school here with me?
Guini: Yes.
Me: We never get Guini-Nonna time like that anymore. I really miss hanging out with you.
Guini: Well, I don’t have school Monday. I’m available to come over around 11 o’clock for lunch, just you and me. How about that?
Well, he will be 4 weeks on Wednesday. Yes he will, my little Malakai (“Kai” for short) Powers *kiss-kiss*. He wasn’t even due until Valentine’s Day, but by then we shall be quite dear friends.
We hung out the other day and this was my {beautiful} iPhone vantage point.
Here was his response, I assume, to block the incessant kissy-faces he was getting from me.
Oh, he is a cuddle-bug, he is! Kinda leaves me speechless.
