Chocolate Cake

I have discovered the best recipe for chocolate cake ever. Actually, my daughter, Sarah Jane found it first, but this is a variation of it. I was going to make SJ's, the one on the back of the Hershey's Cocoa, for my brother's 40th birthday last week. But there wasn't enough cocoa. I went to the store to buy more and all they had was Special Dark Hershey's Cocoa. This is just a gimmick, I thought, Cocoa is cocoa. They're just getting in on this dark-chocolate-is-good-for-you bit. Well, it was different. And in this recipe - better! I compared the cake recipes on the backs of these boxes, and they were identical. I don't understand it, but there it is.


I used store-bought frosting, Whipped Chocolate or such, and it went great with the cake. This week, however I used an icing that I would call a gritty flop. It was called Creamy Vanilla Icing. Don't use it. It's one of those cooked icings. No matter how I beat it to dissolve the granulated sugar, it was still gritty when I served it. This is the link to it:



http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,166,159183-249206,00.html



My family was great about it, telling me that the "cake was great!" But as I scraped dishes afterwards, I noticed a large amount of icing left behind...

Is this a dream?

I love how the simple things in life can make a child so happy. Since it was such a nice evening, I told Noah I'd take him to the local park. He wanted to bring his big beach shovel along to dig in the sandbox. I think this was a big deal to him. As we walked to the park, he held my hand, and asked, "Is this a dream?" I knew he was looking surprised to be using that big shovel, and I assured him, "No, it' not - we're really doing this!"

Josh is in the process of painting Noah's room. It's going to have a nautical look, as Noah likes pirate ships. So we started with water (the variegated blue carpet). I thought sand would be a good color to feel like the sea. Then Josh decided to make the base board brown, use sand on the wall under the chair rail, dark bluefor the chair rail, and sky blue above the chair rail. So, besides the carpet, the room should feel like a ship, which the sky beyond. I hope it works out that way.

Time for bed. Busy day tomorrow.

Noah humming

Noah is walking around the house humming parts of "Angel of Music" from Phantom of the Opera. I love to watch him playing in his own little world and listen to his little voice humming away on key the happy parts of a song he heard only a few times. How sweet that he found it interesting enough to retain for humming.

My children are growing up so quickly! I was a young mom surrounded by little ones just a short time ago. And now they are so grown. I'm very glad we still have this one little boy left, only six years old. I think God knew I needed just one more.