First off, I got kindof tickled at the reaction this book got while it was in my "reading spot" in the living room... Each guy that happened to see it (My husband, my dad and at least one of our good friends) had questions about it. I think they were each wondering what I was going to find out! Very funny!
This was a good book to help in understanding how men view their God given roles - Provider and Protector - and how modern society has sometimes warped the ability of men to fulfill those roles. One of the sections that really stood out to me was about how men function in today's church world on the whole - how many modern churches have become more of a women's world, even to the wording of worship songs (instead of "Onward, Christian Soldiers" more songs are along the lines of "Beautiful One I Love.")
I learned a lot from this book. Some of the information wasn't necessarily new (I've also read "For Women Only" by Shaunti Feldham), but I really liked that this book was from a male's perspective. I would recommend it for any wife or wife to be. :)
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Thank you to Bethany House for providing the book for me to review. My opinions are my own.
Well, not real fire.... unless you are counting the candles. As I mentioned earlier, Mark's brother Ryan turned 30 on Saturday and we had a little party for him. I can't resist a new challenge for a cake! Ryan has worked as a volunteer fireman in one of their local communities. He still has a fireman's heart, so I made him a fireman cake.
I did "cheat" just a tad - the fireman is actually a toy that I found. However, I was glad just to get it pulled together - I was still recovering from that nasty sinus infection. The "fire" idea was from a cake I pinned a while back. Unfortunately, the "fire" did cause some structural damage to the rice crispy house. It eventually fell apart (Much to the joy of several of the guys... they gladly ate the damage!) :) I recommend letting the rice crispies set up more before trimming, and maybe it would be helpful to cut the spots for the flames with a knife before shoving them in. Live and learn I guess. The fireman was pretty pleased with his cake.
How do you like that fire truck? I discovered that it isn't easy to find a simple fire truck... even in the biggest toystore in town!! I actually found this little toy set - fireman, truck and a few signs - at a closeout store. How random! I had a blast with that truck - the lights lit up and a siren went off when you pushed the button!!
The cake was made of my basic chocolate cake recipe... in retrospect, due to the popularity of the "house" I probably could have made the whole thing of rice crispy treats and everyone would have been just as happy! :)
The second cake for last weekend wasn't quite as detailed. In fact, I don't even have that great of a picture of it. However, the attraction was more in the flavor anyway... Mark requests his Mocha Truffle Cheesecake each year. I've never made him a "fancy" cake because cheesecake is his favorite. I must say, it is pretty yummy!!! (This is the recipe I use, although I make the crust quite a bit different.)
Happy birthday to my wonderful hubby!!!!
How about you? Anyone else got a project to share? (You even got a bonus week to post something this month... aren't I nice?) ;) Maybe you've got some secret Christmas project you couldn't share until after the big day? (Or if you're like me, you did very little Christmas crafting this year... Here's big hopes for an earlier start for that next year!) ;)
And, WOW, did it start off with a bang for us! I'll back up a bit though.... After spending a "Texas Christmas" with my family, we left Christmas Eve and headed to Tennessee to be with Mark's family. Part of the time we celebrated with his aunt and uncle in the southern part of the state, then the day after Christmas the whole crew headed up to the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area. We had rented a couple of cabins at a small retreat center there.
Hubby and I on a "hike" in the mountains.
We enjoyed spending time with family! We had a lot of fun playing games and visiting (and eating YUMMY food!) Our favorite attraction at Pigeon Forge was the Titanic Museum. Of course, I like about any museum, and this one was very well done. Another plus was that it wasn't overcrowded.
We went with Mark's brother Ryan and his wife Mary while most of the rest of the family enjoyed the wild and crazy (and jam packed) Wonderworks. :) (Let's just say that the week between Christmas and New Years isn't the easiest time to enjoy this area of the Smokies... WAY too many people!)
We really enjoyed our visit with them, although as always, it was way too short!
After our stop in Alabama, it was homeward bound!! We got home with just a few hours to spare to celebrate the new year with my family!! The next day, disaster struck... the flu bug bit. Hard. Mark went down first and I followed close behind. (Although my recovery wasn't quite as easy as his, my "bug" settled in my sinus and necessitated a trip to the dr for some antibiotics! Painful yuckiness!) We are so grateful to recover from that!
This past weekend was also a big one for us as we celebrated Mark and Ryan's birthdays! Ryan's birthday is the 12th and he turned the big 3-0 this year! Mark's birthday was the next day, so as you might have guessed, I had two cakes to make this weekend!! :) (But you'll have to wait to see... one of the cakes will be my finished object on Friday - just a week late...) :)
And thus explains my long blog absence!! :) I will try to be a bit more faithful to this little blog, but it seems this year is already promising to be a busy and hectic one. I'm holding onto faith for good things this year! :)
First off, I got kindof tickled at the reaction this book got while it was in my "reading spot" in the living room... Each guy that happened to see it (My husband, my dad and at least one of our good friends) had questions about it. I think they were each wondering what I was going to find out! Very funny!
