The Angel Forever

Tie-Dyed Cheesecake Results and B-day summary

Posted on August 6, 2009 8:31 pm by TheAngelForever

All day Monday, JL and I kept talking about how we could not wait to try the Tie-Dyed Cheesecake experiment that we made on Sunday. We were anxious to see if it would live up to our memories of the amazing cake that we had while at Disney’s Pop Century Resort in May. Monday evening finally arrived. JL and I dropped the boys off to have dinner with Nana and Papa. From here we drove to a new Chinese/Japanese/Thai restaurant to try. On our way we saw the fire engine that was mentioned on my Worldess Wednesday.

It was so nice having dinner together and not worrying about what the kids would eat. We quickly decided on some sushi rolls to share and ordered our meal. After a little while, our sushi appetizer arrived. Not only did it look amazing, it was absolutely delicious.

Just as we were finishing these up, our meals arrived. I decided to go with something safe, but not something that I typically get (beef and broccoli) and JL tried something quite different (spicy orange tofu).

Thanks to my digital camera being with us most of the time, we were able to capture the photos of our wonderful meal. Of course, taking photos during your meal gets you looks. Our waitress came over. Of course, I had to explain that we blog and take pictures to show JL’s birthday meal. A little while later, while waiting for our packaged leftovers, the waitress and another come over. The two of them were singing happy birthday to JL while carrying ice cream with a lit candle on top.

Once we were done with dinner, we went back to my parent’s house to have the much anticipated Tie-Dyed Cheesecake. I quickly opened up the spring form pan so we were able to see more of the colors.

Then it was time to sing Happy Birthday to JL and dig into the cake.

Finally, it was time to cut inside and see if it looked anything like the much loved cake from Disney’s Pop Century Resort. Here is a reminder of what the cake there looked like.

This is what we saw when we sliced inside the cake . . .

As you can imagine, we were all disappointed. It looked nothing like the cake of our dreams from the memories in May. This cake was 2/3 red velvet and only 1/3 cheesecake. NHL actually thought the cheesecake was frosting on top of the regular cake. Basically the proportions of the cake were flipped.

Don’t get me wrong, the recipe is not a bust. It was not horrible. However, as cheesecake fans we loved the cheesecake part, which was a mere blip in the cake. In the end, we figure we would try this recipe again. Next time we would likely use 1/3 of the cake mix, or possibly only 1/4 of it. Then we would at least double the cheesecake portion. We figure this would fix the proportions. In addition to this, we would not cook the red velvet all the way during the first time in the oven. We figure mostly baked would allow it not to dry out quite as much. Of course, we may also try this recipe that my friend who made this on Monday found after we had both made these cheesecakes. Certainly not going to be any complaints from the family about eating another cheesecake!

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Submitted as part of Grace’s Kitchen Friends on Feels Like Home.

Categories:
baking birthday Disney food glorious food jl looking back photos yummy

Spotlight on PR

Posted on August 5, 2009 7:19 pm by TheAngelForever

My online friend Tara from Feels Like Home and her friend at Adrienne’s House are reaching out to help fellow bloggers in our quest to reach out to PR professionals and build lasting relationships. A huge thank you to both of them for all of their hard work on this wonderful idea.

To those coming over from Spotlight on PR, hello and welcome to The Angel Forever. I started this blog back in February 2007 as a place to come and write about the happenings of my life. At the time, I was pregnant with my second child, teaching, a mother of a 3 year old son and blogging novice. My blog was a nice location to write down my thoughts, share with family/friends and capture cherished memories for my boys. So much has changed over the last two years. I am now a stay-at-home mother to my two sons (almost 6 and just 2). Over the past year, I have blogged almost every day . . . and I look forward to it.

The Angel Forever is not only a blog about my life as a mommy, it is about life in general. Some of the items I blog about these days:

Transition from teaching to being a stay-at-home mom
Life as the only girl in a house of boys
Jewish traditions/holidays
Books that we read
Items that we enjoy (toys, video games, execise DVDs, electronics, kitchen gadgets, and music just to name a few)
Disney World vacation planning with kids
Toddler tantrums and potty training (coming soon)
Being the parent at school and not the teacher
Review items sent in an honest voice where I give pros and even cons when I see them (see my blogging with Integrity button on the right)
Battles with doctors, allergies, fevers and other health related "fun"
Crafts, especially my knitting hobby
Meeting friends and becoming sisters with amazing women online
Keeping a kosher kitchen and mostly vegetarian household
Educational trips/visits
Baking and recipes

As you can see, it is quite the mix of items, but that is what my life is all about. My husband, boys and extended family are the most important aspect of my life. They help me to be creative and explore the wonderful and wacky world of blogging. Building relationships with people all over the blogosphere has been a wonderful opportunity that I have had thanks to The Angel Forever. Communication is key and if you would like to pitch an idea to me, know that I will respond quickly with my thoughts. I look forward to hearing from you.

For more information on me, please check out the About Moi section at the top of my blog. Feel free to contact me at the_angel_forever[at]yahoo[dot]com

Categories:
bloggy friends looking back me moments Product review Web business

Fire engine anyone?

Posted on August 5, 2009 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

Saw this while driving down the road the other day. A great reason to always have a camera with you!

Categories:
interesting laughs Wordless Wednesday

Happy Birthday Mr. President

Posted on August 4, 2009 9:18 am by TheAngelForever

This morning NHL woke up. One of the first things he said to me was that it was President Barack Obama’s birthday today. Yes, my almost six year old son knew that the President’s birthday is today.

You may be asking yourself, how or why he knows this fact or several others about United States Presidents that he rattled off to Nana and Papa last night? The answer is mainly that he loves to learn. When he hears something, he sets it to memory. Just like his Daddy had when little, NHL has a some what photographic memory.

Of course, the real answer is that we bought sets of U.S. Presidents flash cards and ones of the United States. Nana found them at Target in the dollar bins as you walk in. NHL loved them so much while visiting her a few weeks back that I went and looked for them. As a teacher, I love having as many educational and fun things around the house.

Sunday JL and NHL decided to look at the U.S. Presidents cards. They sat there for quite some time reading about each of the presidents. JL noticed that President Obama’s birthday was the day after his. NHL recalled this and as you know said it first thing this morning. Last night he was even able to tell Nana several other facts about more distant presidents.

While NHL was playing with the cards at my parent’s house he asked me which presidents were around during my life. I knew most of them. What I did not realize was there was one other. Since I was a December baby born after an election I was technically born during the Ford administration. Sad that I never really thought about that, but I always remember Carter being mentioned when I was older and never thought about when he was sworn in. To answer NHL’s question I quickly pulled out all of the cards for the presidents and showed them to him. Then we talked about the two presidents during his life and how there will be many more to come.

Anyone else notice how different #43’s photo is compared to the rest? I thought it was odd how his was a close-up shot rather than the more traditional portraits. I’m assuming the current president’s photo was a quick one they used to get this product out fast.

Yesterday while on the way to drop the boys off to Nana and Papa (we were going out to have dinner for JL’s birthday), JL asked NHL how old he thought he was. NHL guessed 31. When JL told him he was 34, NHL immediately said "Oh, so next year you can run for President Daddy!" So there you have it ladies and gentlemen, TechyDad will be running for president in the not too distant future – LOL!

So what kind of fun educational items do you have/use with your children or did you love when you were a child? Please let me know in the comments because inquiring minds would love to know.

Categories:
birthday interesting kid talk laughs nhl photos real world news

Birthday wishes for TechyDad

Posted on August 3, 2009 9:00 am by TheAngelForever

Today is a special day in our family. It is the reason three of us spent time baking an extra special cheesecake for tonight. On this day, many years ago in a city that often appears to be in a galaxy far far away, my husband was born. Today JL will be spending the day at work, coding lots of important items. Thanks to going in early this week, he will leave to pick NHL up from Dinosaur Camp. From there we will be dropping the boys off to have dinner with Nana and Papa. Not sure where JL will pick to have his B-day dinner, but my guess is something that involves sushi. After that we will head back to get the boys and finally test out the tie-dyed cheesecake together.

Here are some new photos from the weekend of my amazing husband with our boys. These are when we went to build at Home Depot Saturday morning to make a message center. I can already see the future when JL teaches the boys to build their own computers from individual components.

Later in the afternoon, it was sunny out and we went to the park. All three of the boys had fun running all over the place. The two little guys even had some special one-on-one time with JL.

Last year I wrote a piece, with lots of photos, about our years together and it still sums everything up. JL is the geek of my dreams and I love him more and more each day. Most women would only dream about an amazing husband who cooks dinner almost every night, cleans the bathroom, and loves to play with the kids. This is my reality and I am truly blessed to have found my TechyDad and married him.